Oak Row Equities and Vlad Doronin’s OKO Group teamed up to pay a record $520 million for Aimco’s waterfront Brickell assemblage, with plans for a luxury hotel and residential project, The Real Deal has learned.
Oak Row, led by Erik Rutter and David Weitz, and OKO bought the 4.24-acre property 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, according to the buyers’ news release. Mariposa Real Estate partnered on the purchase.
The deal, which closed Monday, breaks down to $122.4 million per acre. It is the most expensive sale of a development site in South Florida.
Oak Row put the property under contract for $520 million a year ago, at the time announcing only Mariposa as its co-buyer. OKO’s partnering on the deal likely came later. Throughout this year, Oak Row made the required periodic deposits, Aimco’s filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission showed.
Tyko Capital, a joint venture between debt broker Adi Chugh and billionaire hedge funder Paul Singer’s Elliott Investment Management, provided $464.5 million senior loan for the purchase and predevelopment.
The developers plan to build a hotel and branded condos in the project’s first phase, according to the release. It will join a crowded pipeline of branded residences in South Florida.
The tri-county region is the epicenter for branded residential projects in North America, according to Knight Frank. As of last month, Miami had 48 completed and 55 planned branded projects, second only to Dubai, according to Savills.
Branded South Florida projects on tap include Edgardo Defortuna’s Fortune International Group and Karmely’s KAR Properties Faena Residences on the Miami River, in partnership with Alan Faena; and Black Salmon, the Boschetti Group and Constellation Group HQ Residences Miami in Edgewater, in partnership with Sam Nazarian’s HQ Hotels & Residences by sbe. Marc Anthony is one of Nazarian’s partners.
Other projects are the Ritz-Carlton in North Bay Village, a Waldorf Astoria under construction in downtown Miami and a Nobu in Brickell.
The Brickell property, which has 485 feet of Biscayne Bay frontage, can be developed by right with multiple supertalls totalling over 3 million square feet across property types. The tallest height allowed in Miami is 1,049 feet due to Federal Aviation Administration rules.
Denver-based Aimco, which last month announced a voluntary liquidation amid a slower multifamily market, first listed the sites last year, with an asking price of about $650 million. The announcement of its dissolution came as Aimco, led by Wes Powell, was selling off properties nationwide.
Robert Given and Troy Ballard led the CBRE team that marketed the Brickell sites.
Oak Row, which has offices in Miami and New York, is on a Miami development spree focused on luxury rentals. Its two Edgewater towers are the 41-story, 399-unit 2600 Biscayne with 187,000 square feet of commercial space, financed with a $181 million construction loan secured in March; and the 38-story, 324-unit 2900 Terrace tower, financed with a $210.5 million construction loan secured in June.
Oak Row and its partners this year completed the Wynwood Plaza mixed-use project with a 509-unit apartment building and a 266,000-square-foot office building in Miami’s Wynwood. Across from Brightline’s MiamiCentral Station in downtown Miami, the firm also plans the First & Fifth apartment tower, approved for 526 units.
OKO and London-based Cain International completed the 57-story 830 Brickell office tower in Miami last year, scoring a pre-leasing bonanza during the pandemic era influx of out-of-state companies to South Florida. Elsewhere, their projects include the 135-unit Una Residences condo tower in Brickell, and the 249-unit Missoni Baia condo tower in Edgewater. Doronin and Len Blavatnik started construction in August of Aman Miami Beach with hotel rooms and condos.
Little has been revealed in marketing materials about Mariposa. It appears tied to the Franklin family’s Miami-based Mariposa Capital, led by Martin Franklin, who founded firms in the frozen food, chemicals and consumer goods industries. In 2022, Franklin bought a big minority stake in the Casa Tua hospitality firm.
The Brickell site sale surpassed the biggest development site deal in South Florida to date. In 2022, billionaire hedge funder Ken Griffin paid $363 million for a 2.5-acre bayfront Brickell lot where he plans a Citadel and Citadel Securities headquarters office tower and other uses. That deal equated to $145.2 million per acre, more than what Oak Row and OKO paid on a per acre basis.
Oak Row and OKO’s total purchase price likely was more than what Griffin had paid because the Aimco assemblage includes income-producing office and apartment buildings.