Asi Cymbal scored a $114 million refinancing for a 341-unit Live Local Act apartment complex in Miami Gardens, as loans keep flowing in South Florida.
Apollo Global Management and RXR Realty Investments provided the loan, which paid off the $102.5 million construction financing for the 14-acre Laguna Gardens at 20775 Northwest 17th Avenue, according to the developer’s news release.
Midtown Miami-based Cymbal DLT completed the complex with 11 four-story buildings last year, after scoring the construction financing in 2022 from New York-based Related Companies affiliated Related Fund Management. The complex is near Hard Rock Stadium.
Designed by Jo Palma and Partners, Laguna Gardens consists of one-bedroom to three-bedroom apartments, ranging from 650 square feet to 1,330 square feet, according to the release. The complex is over 95 percent leased.
Cymbal DLT originally planned Laguna Gardens as a market-rate complex and started construction before state lawmakers approved the Live Local Act in 2023. The firm retroactively applied the law, designating all units for households earning up to 120 percent of the area median income. Monthly rents start at about $2,000, according to the release.
This allowed Cymbal to get a property tax exemption, one of the Live Local Act’s incentives for developers to build affordable and workforce housing.
The law, which legislators tweaked last year, also allows developers to build bigger projects than a site’s zoning permits as long as at least 40 percent of apartments are for households earning up to 120 percent of the AMI. The units have to stay at below-market rents for a minimum of 30 years.
Cymbal’s next project is the five-tower Nautico District with 1,200 apartments and condos and a 119-key hotel at 413 Southwest Third Avenue in Fort Lauderdale. The city approved three of the towers in December.
South Florida refinancings have continued, despite still elevated interest rates and generally skittish lenders. Last month, Terra scored a $291 million refinancing package for its recently completed first phase of Centro City, consisting of a 470-unit apartment complex and an adjacent 350,000 square feet of retail on the northwest corner of Northwest Seventh Street and Northwest 37th Avenue in Miami’s West Little Havana.
That came on the heels of the Whitman family securing a $740 million loan in December for Bal Harbour Shops that refinanced a $550 million debt and also will pay for the luxury retail center’s expansion. Also in December, Jeffrey Soffer’s Fontainebleau Development landed a $550 million refinancing for JW Marriott Miami Turnberry Resort & Spa at 19999 West Country Club Drive in Aventura, as well as a $1.2 billion debt for Fontainebleau Miami Beach at 4441 Collins Avenue in Miami Beach.