Sean McCaughan
Graphic artist Romero Britto has opened his new Lincoln Road gallery at the former Serendipity 3 space on Lincoln Road, Miami Condo Investments has just noticed while walking by. The very bright-white space is hard to miss. Alongside more moodily lit restaurants, it’s like on of those bright floodlights that you see mosquitos flying around… right in the middle of Miami Beach’s new Zika Zone.
Photo by Phillip Pessar.
Five new locally transmitted cases of Zika, two locals and three tourists, have appeared in South Beach within the box of 8th and 28th Streets, spanning the Atlantic Ocean to Biscayne Bay, reports the Miami Herald. This isn’t good. Governor Scott announced this as Miami’s second Zika Zone of active transmission. As the Herald says:
Aerial spraying cannot be conducted amid the high rises and ocean breezes of Miami Beach because the airplanes fly low, about 100 feet above the ground, Frieden said. But crowds of tourists on Miami Beach, and the abundance of people in bathing suits and exposed skin, means more people may be infected.
Although there is controversy over the spraying (as it kills mosquito predators too) this is not good. Check out the Herald’s map of the affected area here.
Update: Carlos says it’s the 6th now, not the 7th.
The Related Group’s Hyde Beach House, the last tower in its cluster of projects straddling the Hollywood, Hallandale Beach border, is breaking ground September 6th, Carlos Rosso, President of Related’s condo division, told Miami Condo Investments. The condo tower follows Apogee Hollywood Beach, the first completed South Florida condo tower of this real estate cycle, the Hyde Beach Club, Beachwalk, and the Hyde Resort. The entire rest of the assemblage has been completed except for the Hyde Resort, which will begin closings by the end of the year, says Rosso.
Previous listing photo.
The Miami Beach compound mobster and Mr. #1 on the FBI’s Most Wanted List, Alphonse Capone lived, and died in, when not in Chicago, has sold to European soccer agent Mino Riaola for an estimated $9 million. The actual amount has apparently not been made public. The house is located at 93 Palm Avenue, on Miami Beach’s Palm Island. Although the Miami Herald broke the news, the story appears to have been taken down from the paper’s website, which is a little odd. Curbed Miami reblogged it in time, however.
The Palm Island waterfront home was saved from a desperate state and likely destruction and restored to something closer its original appearance by its former owner, who listed the restored house in 2012 for $10 million, had trouble selling it for years, took it off the market to use as some kind of event/film venue, and by now is probably glad to be rid of it. That’s pretty unfortunate because, even though it is kind of an odd house, with a scandalous reputation, it’s still fantastically historical, and still classy. I covered the house frequently while Curbed, so check out their archives. Hopefully Riaola will take care of the house as it deserves to be taken care of, and correct a few of the mistakes in the renovation. As I noticed during a tour of the house a few years ago with my friend Dana Herndon, who wrote this excellent piece for Curbed on the house, although the renovation undoubtedly saved the house, it appeared at the time to have been done on the cheap.
A fabulously classic Mediterranean Revival mansion in Coconut Grove called “La Solana” has just listed for $3.299 million. The broker’s remarks say it like it is: “one of the last original 1920’s Grove mansions to maintain its timeless elegance and to have escaped the curse of bad updating.” Yep, that happens all the time. It even has a fabulous old giant porcelain sink in the kitchen. When was the last time you saw a working one of those? Dripping in original details by its architects, the seminal South Florida firm of Kiehnel & Elliott, like that sink and the Moroccan front door surround (seriously, check that out!) La Solana looks to have been gorgeously restored to its old beauty.
Zaha Hadid was here. By Sean McCaughan.
The large, raw, double-height retail space on the first floor of Ten Museum Park which has played host to lots of real estate industry parties over the years, like the groundbreaking and other events for One Thousand Museum, the Zaha Hadid condo tower next door, is for rent. Now that that tower is getting nice and tall, they must not be needing it anymore. (they were both built by the same developers) The 4,000 square feet location is ready for build-out, and listed at $60 per square feet with triple net. Check out the listing photos here.
Photos via MDT
Miami-Dade Transit unveiled Florida’s first air-conditioned bus shelter because of, well, Dubai. At the unveiling ceremony yesterday Mayor Gimenez quipped “When Alice [Bravo, head of MDT] told me there were air-conditioned bus shelters in Dubai, I said we need those in Miami-Dade County,” an anecdote that he probably thinks is super cute but a lot of people could easily mock.
Located at the Hialeah Metrorail Station, because it’s the transit stop frequented by the most old people, (measured by free ‘Golden Passport’ usage) again according to Gimenez, there will be at “at least thirty of these” placed around Miami-Dade County. That means lots of people could get the relief, and comfort, of not having to sit out and wait for the bus in the insanely sweltering Miami heat. “The more people are comfortable, the more they will use mass transit” says Mayor Gimenez.
Photo by Phillip Pessar.
Between Wynwood and the airport, long term real estate investoros and businesses from a variety of commercial and creative industries, including many shifting out of Wynwood and into fresher pastures, are discovering the richness and potential of Allapattah. Yes, Allapattah, one of Miami’s oldest neighborhoods, which for as long as this Miami native can remember lots of people have avoided or just kind of ignored, at least partially because of its extremely sketchy reputation.
Those are rapidly outdating prejudices, however, as the strengths of Allapattah, including its strategic and central location, access to the Metrorail, traditional and even historic character, large Dominican community (It was nicknamed “Little Santo Domingo”) mixture of uses, and lower price points than neighboring areas like Wynwood, and the river, become more widely known.
Real estate investors like Roland DiGasbarro, who owns about a dozen properties in the area, and artist William Betts, who owns an entire block. “The buildings in the area are amazing and, in my opinion, some should be preserved,” Francisco De La Tour, who relocated his Butter Gallery to Allapattah told Miami Today. “They tell the story of Miami and the glory of State Road 441.” Allapattah is getting its first permanent open-air market, started by the owner of Wood Tavern in Wynwood, this fall. And news stories like “Allapattah auto repair site, slated for a boutique, sells for $1.4M” have started appearing more and more frequently in place of stories like “One killed, three injured in Allapattah shooting,” which would be where that old local prejudice came from in the first place.
Scene from the Auberge Miami Launch Party at the the project’s sales center. Sean McCaughan.
Auberge Miami is being delayed until at least late 2018, and they have offered lease extensions to at least one tenant of the existing structure on the site until the middle of that year. According to Related’s condo division president Carlos Rosso, who spoke to Miami Condo Investments, “it’s the market.” Surprised? Probably not.
“We are selling, and as soon as we get to our (desired) presales we will start construction. The sales center is open” Rosso said. In April the Related Group reported that reservations at the first of the three planned towers at Auberge Miami were at 20 percent, while the more recent ISG second quarter market report placed sales at a more modest 15 percent, with both presale numbers reflecting the significantly slumping real estate market. As ISG Principal Craig Studnicky, whose firm has a partnership with Related, told the Real Deal, “It’s not terribly surprising” that Related would chose to delay the gargantuan condo project by a year, or more. (The first tower is planned to have 290 units, while the while the whole thing was designed with a whopping 1400) “Related will keep pushing” until they hit the right sales number, Studnicky said.
And, as Rosso basically confirmed, it looks like that’s exactly what Related is doing, according to leasing emails leaked to The Real Deal for some of the existing commercial space on the site, offering an extension to a current tenant until late August 2018. This means that instead of the originally planned 2017 groundbreaking, they likely don’t plan on building a thing there until at least late 2018. Of course, that also depends on how sales go from here.
