Related Group, led by the Pérez family, landed a $100.4 million construction loan for a multifamily project on a portion of a closed university campus in North Miami.
The debt comes amid a swell of construction financing in South Florida, as the tri-county region is bucking the national trend of a slowdown due to elevated interest rates.
Coconut Grove-based Related plans the eight-story Manor Biscayne building with 382 units and 9,300 square feet of retail at 1650 Northeast 124th Street. Santander Bank is the lender, records show.
The 3-acre site consists of a parking lot that is part of the former Johnson & Wales University campus, a hospitality school that closed during the pandemic. The university shuttered its North Miami and Denver outposts after the completion of the 2020-21 school year.
Developers have scooped up portions of the 25-acre JWU campus. In 2021, Kevin Maloney’s Property Markets Group beat a crowded field of investors seeking to put JWU under contract, and then started flipping portions of the property.
Related bought the Manor Biscayne development site for $13.6 million from Yoram Izhak’s IMC Equity Group in 2022.
Other developers planning projects at the campus include IMC Equity, which wants to develop roughly 500 apartments by retrofitting dormitories as well as completing ground-up construction.
Related is led by Jorge Pérez and his sons, Jon Paul Pérez and Nick Pérez. The firm is partnering with the Toledano family’s BH Group on several projects, including the planned 26-story, 275-unit Icon Aventura condo project. The building at 999 Northeast 191st Street will also have 20 apartments at below market rates for first responders and teachers in Aventura.
The recent flurry of construction loans has been largely for condo projects. In one of the biggest deals, Related and Alta Developers scored a $240 million construction loan for the Casa Bella Residences by B&B Italia condo tower in downtown Miami. The 56-story, 319-unit project at 1400 Biscayne Boulevard is under construction.
In December, Fortune International Group and Oak Capital landed a $259 million loan for the 205-unit Ritz-Carlton Residences, Pompano Beach, at 1380 South Ocean Boulevard. It marked the biggest construction loan over the past three months.