Tecnoglass has big plans for a new headquarters in Miami’s Morningside after acquiring a shovel ready development site.
An affiliate of Tecnoglass, an industrial glass manufacturer that last year moved to Miami from Barranquilla, Colombia, acquired a 0.6-acre assemblage at 5101 and 5125 Biscayne Boulevard, according to records and real estate database Vizzda.
Morningside is an affluent enclave in Miami’s Upper Eastside, where the city of Miami has enacted strict height limits and historic designations of buildings featuring MiMo architecture.
Tecnoglass, led by CEO José Manuel Daes, paid $5.5 million for the site, which has city of Miami approval for a three-story mixed-use project, records and Vizzda show.
Alfredo Riascos with Gridline Properties marketed the assemblage on behalf of the seller, an affiliate of Miami-based Mattoni Group. The asking price was $6.3 million, according to an online offering.
Mattoni, led by Ricardo Caporal, acquired the properties for $4 million in 2016, records show. At the time, Mattoni and then-seller, Avra Jain, had partnered to redevelop the site.
Tecnoglass, a publicly traded company that makes glass for residential and commercial buildings, will move forward with the planned project, which will house the company’s corporate office and flagship showroom, said Carlos Amin, the firm’s sales director.
One of the parcels includes the shuttered Bayside Motor Inn motel, which will be converted into a restaurant with two floors spanning 6,960 square feet, the offering states. On the other lot, Tecnoglass can build a three-story addition with 16,433 square feet of office space and 4,060 square feet of ground-floor retail.
Tecnoglass has also gone through some controversy. In 2021, the company’s stock price briefly dropped by more than 40 percent due to a negative report alleging that the firm’s principals had alleged ties to a Colombian drug cartel and that its financials could not be trusted, according to a New York Post article. The report was produced by Hindenburg Research, a firm known for compiling negative information on companies to boost short-selling of stocks.
Tecnoglass stock is currently trading at about $58 a share, a 35 percent jump compared to a year ago.