HRP-led Entity is Mystery Buyer of Fisher Island Dev Site

An entity led by HRP Group, a Chicago-based real estate firm specializing in redeveloping contaminated properties, is the mystery buyer paying $180 million for a 9.6-acre development site on Miami Beach’s Fisher Island, The Real Deal has learned.

The parcel, home to a fuel depot owned by global energy company TransMontaigne Partners, is the last remaining plot of land on Fisher Island primed for redevelopment, but it would require environmental cleanup.

A spokesperson for HRP, a subsidiary of private financial services firm Hilco Global, confirmed that the firm is under contract to purchase the TransMontaigne site at 1 Fisher Island Drive. The HRP spokesperson declined further comment. The firm is led by CEO Roberto Perez.

TRD previously reported in January that the site was under contract for $180 million.

Spokespersons for Denver-based TransMontaigne and CBRE, which marketed the site, did not respond to requests for comment.

At a July meeting of Fisher Island Club members, board chair David Chene discussed the deal between TransMontaigne and HRP, a video obtained by TRD shows.

The deal is expected to close on Sept. 30, Chene said during the meeting. “They are very credible,” he said of HRP. “They know how to remediate industrial dirty sites.”

HRP, formerly known as Hilco Redevelopment Partners, is an operating company under financial services firm Hilco Global. The rebrand came last year in anticipation of a planned spinoff from Hilco, which has not yet been finalized. HRP specializes in developing “obsolete industrial sites” and “complex redevelopment projects,” according to its website.

For instance, HRP is redeveloping a former refinery in Philadelphia that was closed in 2019 after an explosion and fire at the facility. In 2022, the developer launched a 15-year construction timeline for Bellwether District, a planned 15-million-square-foot industrial and life sciences hub at the site.

TransMontaigne, led by CEO Randy Maffett, listed the Fisher Island site last summer with a starting asking price of $200 million, according to a source who received the offering memorandum and spoke to TRD at the time. The source also told TRD in January that the buyer was based in Chicago and planned to redevelop the fuel depot into luxury homes in the future.

Terms of the deal require the buyer to lease the terminal to TransMontaigne until at least 2027 so that the fuel depot operator can fulfill storage agreements with its clients. TransMontaigne bought the Fisher Island fuel depot in 2003 as part of a $156 million portfolio acquisition that included six other energy storage facilities, including at Fort Lauderdale’s Port Everglades, published reports state.

Prior to the fuel depot site hitting the market, the last slice of developable land on Fisher Island was acquired by a partnership between Jorge Pérez’s Coconut Grove-based Related Group, Aventura-based BH Group, billionaire Teddy Sagi and Chicago-based Wanxiang America RE Group. In 2022, the joint venture paid $122.6 million for the 6.5-acre property and is planning Six Fisher Island, a 50-unit boutique condominium with units starting at about $30 million.