Inside OKO Group, Oak Row’s South Florida Projects

Oak Row Equities and Vlad Doronin’s OKO Group paid a record $520 million this week for a Brickell assemblage they plan to develop with a hotel and branded condos.

It marked the biggest development site deal in South Florida and likely the state.

The pair purchased the 4.25-acre bayfront assemblage consisting of the 32-story Brickell Bay Office Tower at 1001 Brickell Bay Drive and the adjacent 31-story, 357-unit Yacht Club Apartments at 1111 Brickell Bay Drive in Miami. Mariposa Real Estate, which is tied to the Franklin family’s Miami-based Mariposa Capital, led by Martin Franklin, also partnered on the deal.

The seller, Denver-based Aimco, has been unwinding its portfolio for the past year. Led by Wes Powell, Aimco is primarily a multifamily investor that last month announced its voluntary liquidation amid a slowing apartment market nationwide.

Aimco first listed the Brickell assemblage for $650 million in March of last year.

Oak Row –– led by David Weitz and Erik Rutter and with offices in New York and Miami –– put the site under contract a year ago, at the time only revealing Mariposa as a partner. OKO’s partnering on the deal likely came later.

In past ventures, OKO Group has partnered with London-based Cain International on most of its projects, while Oak Row has had various partners for its developments. While Oak Row has primarily focused on apartment projects, OKO has developed condos and hotels. Both target the luxury market. Franklin’s only known South Florida investment is his 2022 purchase of a big minority stake in the Casa Tua hospitality firm.

This is the first known partnership between OKO and Oak Row. Here’s a look at each firm’s South Florida projects.

OKO Group

830 Brickell

In perhaps their most notable project, OKO and Cain completed the 57-story 830 Brickell office tower in Miami’s Brickell last year.

The building, at 830 Brickell Plaza, benefitted from fortuitous timing because it was under construction during the pandemic era influx of out-of-state companies to South Florida. The new-to-market firms sought top tier offices and many leased big blocks of space at 830 Brickell, the newest standalone office tower in Brickell in over a decade.

Tenants include Microsoft; law firms Kirkland & Ellis and Sidley Austin; Corient, formerly called CI Financial; Thoma Bravo; Marsh Insurance and Santander Bank. OKO and The Bastion Collection, a subsidiary of Jamal Daniel’sHouston-based Crest Investment Company, plan members-only club Seia with an Italian restaurant on the 54th and 55th floors of 830 Brickell.

Missoni Baia

OKO and Cain developed the 57-story Missoni Baia condo tower at 777 Northeast 26th Terrace in Miami’s Edgewater.

Designed by Hani Rashid of Asymptote Architecture, the tower with 249 units was the first Missoni-branded residential building in the world at the time of its construction. Since then, the Italian luxury fashion house has branded several projects.

Una Residences

The 47-story Una Residences has 135 condos in Miami’s Brickell.

OKO also partnered with Cain on the tower, at 175 Southeast 25th Road. It’s designed by Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture.

The tower is nearly sold out, and completion is expected next year, an OKO representative said.

Aman Miami Beach

OKO, in partnership with billionaire Len Blavatnik’s Access Industries, plans the redevelopment of the historic Versailles structure in Miami Beach into an Aman-branded project.

This year, construction started on the oceanfront project, at 3425 Collins Avenue, that will consist of a 56-key hotel in the Versailles structure, which is now a shell, and a new 18-story building with 22 Aman-branded condos.

The project is sold out, and completion is expected in 2027, according to the OKO spokesperson.

Doronin owns Aman Group, with its investors including Cain.

Palm Beach Residences

OKO and Cain have expanded their South Florida activity to Palm Beach.

On the barrier island, the pair plan a five-story, three-building oceanfront condo complex. In October, they scored approval from the Palm Beach Architectural Review Commission to demolish the existing condo buildings on the site, the Ambassador Palm Beach Hotel & Residences, at 2730 South Ocean Boulevard, and Edgewater, at 2720 South Ocean Boulevard.

At an August meeting in front of the architectural commission, a project representative said the project will be branded by Aman, but OKO has denied this will be an Aman-branded development.

Fort Lauderdale

OKO’s plan for the 34-story, 251-unit One River apartment tower in downtown Fort Lauderdale has stalled, and is the subject of a lawsuit.

In a complaint filed in August, more than 40 investors in the project claimed the developer has failed to advance any “meaningful construction” and is yet to secure a general contractor, three-plus years after obtaining a $97.2 million construction loan. The investors sued OKO, FPR Investor, the entity in which investors purchased a membership interest, and FPR US 1, the sponsor manager of FPR Investor. Cain is a partner in the project, and wasn’t named as a defendant in the suit.

The investors allege FPR has been “nothing more than a vehicle to raise money from investors and enrich defendants,” according to the complaint.

In a statement, OKO denied the claims in the suit as “false and without merit.” OKO, FPR Investor and FPR US 1 also denied the allegations in a court response to the complaint.

Oak Row

Wynwood Plaza

This year, OKO completed the 1 million-square-foot mixed-use Wynwood Plaza project with a 12-story, 266,000-square-foot office building and a 12-story, 509-unit apartment building. The project is at 95 NW 29th Street in Miami’s Wynwood.

The project partners are New York-based L&L Holding Company, led by David Levinson and Robert Lapidus; San Francisco-based Shorenstein, led by Brandon Shorenstein; and Claure Group, led by Marcelo Claure. Claure is the former CEO of Sprint and SoftBank Group International.

Claure Group leased a headquarters office at Wynwood Plaza. Amazon also took 75,500 square feet at the office building. Law firm Weitz & Luxenberg –– led by co-founding members Arthur Luxenberg and Perry Weitz, who is David Weitz’s father and an Oak Row investor –– leased a Wynwood Plaza office. Other tenants haven’t been announced yet.

2900 Terrace

In June, Oak Row scored a $210.5 million construction loan for the 38-story 2900 Terrace luxury apartment tower in Miami’s Edgewater.

The 324-unit building is under construction on the northeast corner of Northeast 29th Street and Northeast Fourth Avenue. Alex Karakhanian’s Lndmrk Development is partnering on the project.

Completion is expected in late 2027.

2600 Biscayne

Oak Row landed a $181 million construction loan last year for the 41-story, 399-unit 2600 Biscayne apartment tower, also in Edgewater. It’s under construction at 2600 Biscayne Boulevard.

More than half of the 187,000 square feet of commercial space at the tower is pre-leased, with Equinox signing up for 30,700 square feet. Coastal Construction, 2600 Biscayne’s general contractor, pre-leased space at the tower, where it will move its headquarters, and Ferraro Law Firm will move into a 28,000-square-foot office.

First&Fifth

Oak Row scored approval in January for the First&Fifth apartment tower across the street from Brightline’s MiamiCentral Station in downtown Miami.

The Miami Urban Development Board greenlit the project after taking issue with the tower’s design last year. At the time, some board members called out what they said was a mismatch between the five-story podium, which had exterior arches, and the rest of the tower, and the incorporation of the historic Salvation Army Citadel building on the site instead of highlighting the building. The Salvation Army Citadel will be preserved.

The tower was approved for 45 stories and 526 apartments, though a recent Oak Row news release said the firm is finalizing the design.

First&Fifth will be at 49 Northwest Fifth Street and 50 Northwest Sixth Street.

Venus

In 2022, before Oak Row had escalated to the upper echelons of Miami real estate, it revealed plans for the 26-story, 440-unit Venus apartment tower in North Miami Beach.

Construction of the project, at 2050 Northeast 164th Street, hasn’t commenced. Oak Row is advancing in the permitting process, according to the company’s news release announcing the Brickell assemblage purchase.

The Oasis

Oak Row’s first known investment in Miami real estate came in 2018, when the firm paid $14 million for a 1.7-acre development site at 2335 North Miami Avenue in Wynwood.

At the time, the real estate industry paid little attention to Rutter and Weitz, apparent novices in real estate investing. Their firm at the time was called Carpe Real Estate Partners, which they later rechristened to Oak Row, an homage to the oak trees that line the entrance to their Wynwood property.

The pair developed The Oasis mixed-use adaptive reuse project on the property, where Spotify leased space for its South Florida headquarters.