Valoro Capital bought an office building in Miami Beach for $22.7 million, marking a slight discount off its purchase price a decade ago.
The deal comes at a contradictory time for South Florida’s office market following a pandemic leasing boom, as landlords feel the sting of elevated interest rates and higher expenses.
Brickell-based Valoro Capital purchased the property at 1680 Meridian Avenue, according to the buyer’s news release. The seller is South Miami-based Market Street Real Estate Partners, records show.
Douglas Mandel was part of the Marcus & Millichap team that represented the seller and buyer.
The six-story Meridian Center, off Lincoln Road, consists of 48,200 square feet of offices and 6,700 square feet of ground-floor retail, according to records and Valoro managing partner Francisco Cantor. Cantor leads the firm with managing partner Alberto Chocron.
Meridian Center is 86 percent leased, Cantor said. Tenants include Harry’s Pizzeria and Keller Williams.
The deal marks Valoro’s first South Florida investment since its $18 million purchase in 2022 of the nine-story office building at 5040 Northwest Seventh Street in Miami.
South Miami-based Market Street Retail Partners had paid $23 million for Meridian Center in 2015, records show, meaning the recent sale was at a 1.3 percent discount. Market Street is led by Robert Oppenheim, Allan Serviansky and Daniel Warman.
The buyer and seller declined to comment on why Meridian Center sold for less than its 2015 price.
Records show that Market Street had a loan on the property maturing next month, Market Street took out a $17.5 million loan on the building in 2015 from RCC Real Estate (now called Acres Capital), refinancing it in 2022 with Ladder Capital and bumping it to $22 million, according to records. The loan had a floating interest rate.
Market Street had a cap on the interest rate, which investors can purchase to hedge against rising rates, and had paid down the balance to about $19.9 million, according to a source.
Elevated interest rates have posed trouble for landlords with fixed-rate loans because they have to refinance at higher rates. The cost of caps also has skyrocketed. Many owners also have more expensive insurance and property taxes, and face skittish lenders reluctant to finance offices. Some lenders have blacklisted the asset class nationwide, including in South Florida, despite hefty leasing in the tri-county region, sources have told The Real Deal.
In July, Bridge Investment Group sold the 11-building Sawgrass Technology Park office campus at 1601-1699 Northwest 136th Avenue in Sunrise for $49 million, or a 34 percent discount off its last purchase price in 2019. Starwood Capital Group sold a four-building office portfolio at 3401 and 3601 Southwest 160th Avenue, as well as 2901 and 2801 Southwest 149th Avenue, in April for $45 million, a 45 percent discount off its 2015 price.
Still, Meridian Center is in a South Beach area that’s a budding office market. The Eighteen Sunset project that’s nearing completion at 1759 Purdy Avenue is fully preleased, according to Colliers, the landlords’ leasing broker. The building has scored gross rents of more than $200 per square foot, sources have told TRD. Robert Rivani’s Black Lion plans a major renovation of The Lincoln at 1691 Michigan Avenue, after paying $62.5 million for it in April.
Sumaida + Khurana plans a five-story office building at 1100 Fifth Street in South Beach, in partnership with property owners Roslyn and Norton Nesis, as well as Robert and Miriam Weiss of Weiss Properties and Aaron Butler of Avenue Real Estate Partners. Nearby, Sumaida + Khurana is developing the five-story The Fifth Miami Beach at 944 Fifth Street and 411 Michigan Avenue. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt is a partner in the project.