Filling Station Lofts Offers 2 Months Free On A 2 Year Lease

The Arts & Entertainment District’s Filling Station Lofts is pulling out the big guns in order to lure long-term tenants. As their Summer Special, they are offering two months’ of free rent to those who sign a two year lease in the building.

To be clear, this does not mean that new residents will simply pay their security deposit and receive keys with no additional money due for 60 days. When buildings offer free rent, the cost of the month’s rent is broken down by however many months are in the lease contract. That broken-down amount is offered as a discount on each monthly rental payment.

So, let’s say you sign a two year lease for $3,500/month. Your discount is $7,000, divided by 24 months. That works out to $292/month, so your monthly rental payment is $3,208.

The Filling Station is a very unique building, offering true industrial New York-style loft units. They can be used as live/work spaces or purely residential. The lofts have 18 foot ceilings and views of the Downtown Miami skyline, or views of Midtown/Wynwood. Pets welcome up to 60 pounds.

Available inventory and prices change frequently, so let us know if you are interested.

Filling Station Lofts Cancels Sales

After only 6 months of marketing, Filling Station Lofts has cancelled the sales of their loft units and will instead operate as a rental building.

With its true industrial-style lofts, Filling Station is a unique building to the area. There is only one true alternative for those who are interested in owning an industrial loft in the Art & Entertainment District, the Filling Station’s sister building, Parc Lofts. Other loft buildings offer what I call Miami-style lofts. Those have the open living area and duplex-style bedroom area, but are more finished. They do not have exposed ducts, or concrete walls and floors. Instead, they typically have white porcelain tile floors and contemporary finishes.

Parc Loft was built in 2005 and opened as a success, which spurred the beginning of Filling Station. Unfortunately, the market changed in the midst of Filling Station’s construction and the original developer went bankrupt, leaving the building in a shell from 2008-2014 when it was completed by a different developer and opened as a successful rental building with a waiting list for availability. This summer, the developer decided to try his hand at the sales market again, offering the units first to existing tenants of the building and then to the open market. They applied for Fannie Mae approval but it seems were just too late to the party. As for now, the building is more successful as a rental than as a condo.

For those who would like to live at Filling Station, have no fear. The building does have select inventory available now. Contact us in order to set up a tour and get the most updated pricing.

The Filling Station Lofts Goes Condo, Again

Filling Station Lofts, one of Miami’s more eclectic residential rental buildings built in the last two real estate cycles, is going condo again. Begun in the 2000s as an urban live/work condo bloc with large, double-height lofts and that ‘converted from an old factory’ look, it was very unusual for Miami. The project stalled in foreclosure as the condo bubble of 2008 busted, after an advertising and sales push called “Bubble Proof” that suggested a buyer’s desire to own a unique space, such as a loft in Miami, and not quick profits, should be the motivating factor behind making such a purchase.

That didn’t work, and the Filling Stations lofts stood as an empty concrete shell, one of those discards of the market crash, for a few years being resurrected by new developers and completed as a rental building in 2014. Now, with 75-percent occupancy, demand reflected in solid rental rates, and Fannie Mae mortgage approval, the Filling Station is going condo, again, according to the Real Deal. With questions looming about the softening condo market and a possible ‘correction,’ here’s to hoping history doesn’t repeat itself.

Site Work Underway; VĪb Miami to Break Ground This Month

It appears that phase one of Richard Meruelo’s mixed-use development, to be located at the intersection of NE 2nd Ave and NE 17th Street in Miami’s Arts + Entertainment District, is moving forward as planned. While out showing properties this past Friday at 1800 Club, I spotted from a distance trucks clearing off the land to his 7.3 acre site.

As reported earlier this year, phase one of Meruelo’s project is to include a 10-story, 200-room hotel called Vīb – a new boutique hotel brand by Best Western. Groundbreaking for the hotel is expected to take place this month with completion slated for November or December of next year.

Meruelo’s site is zoned for up to 3 million square feet. Future phases are expected to include residential units, restaurants, retail, and nightlife – all of which will be welcomed additions to the neighborhood.

The Emergence of the Arts + Entertainment District

As if out of thin air, a new neighborhood has emerged in Miami – the Arts + Entertainment District – an area located north of Park West, south of Wynwood, and west of Edgewater. When I first heard of the newly coined neighborhood, my first thought was, “That’s silly; you can’t just create a neighborhood out of thin air.” But that’s exactly what NR Investments did, and their PR firm is doing a helluva job in making the name stick. It’s a gutsy play, but one that could pay big dividends for NR Investments if things go according to plan.

See, NR Investments has a sizable stake in the area. Not only do they own Filling Stations Lofts – the 81-unit rental development located at 1657 North Miami Avenue – they also own a one-acre parcel located between Northeast 14th and 15th Streets, with plans to one day develop a mixed-use project on that site.

Most notably, NR Investments is the developer behind the 37-story, preconstruction condo development called Canvas, located at 1630 Northeast 1st Avenue. In October 2013, they acquired Canvas’ 1.1-acre site at a bankruptcy auction for $7.2M. Last October – just one year later – NR Investments dubbed the area the Arts + Entertainment District, and kicked-off its launch with a community event featuring free food, coffee, and WiFi. But they didn’t stop there. Since then, weekly events have been held at Filling Station Lofts or their Canvas sales location. These events have included such offerings as live music, yoga classes, food and drinks, a social media workshop, and, most recently, a risque circus show featuring aerial acrobatics – all free to community participants.

NR Investments has taken the “if you build it, they will come” approach, with “it” being community and “they” being residents, who, in turn, it is presumed, would attract the interest of buyers both near and far. The Arts + Entertainment District even has its own website, and the awareness that is brought to the area via its social media channels is on point (again, hat tip to the PR firm). Their commitment to the neighborhood shines through in the content that is produced and published. To see what I mean, follow them on Twitter and Instragram.

But NR Investments is no longer the only major player with a vested interest in seeing this emerging neighborhood succeed. This past January, Rebuild Miami-Edgewater, LLC purchased, for $64M, the 7.35-acre lot located directly north of Canvas and east of Parc Lofts at the corner of Northeast 2nd Avenue and Northeast 17th Street. The site, which is to include hotel, retail, and residential components, is zoned for up to 3 million square feet. Just last week, it was announced that a boutique, 200-room hotel called Vīb will setup shop there, with groundbreaking to occur this November.

In and of itself, news of the 7.35-acre lot finally being developed is huge. In 2005, when closings for units at Parc Lofts began, I remember there being talk of development plans that were all but inevitable for that site. It was to be a big-box retail center called Bayview Market. But, alas, it never happened. The plan got scrapped, and the land sat empty for all these years.

Marketing ploy or not, it appears that NR Investments’ plan is working. With prices averaging $475 per square foot, 40 percent of Canvas’ 513 total units have already been reserved – and that’s saying something. What NR Investments has done with the neighborhood in such a short amount of time is, quite simply, incredible. Creating community is no easy task. In fact, it’s a huge undertaking, one that requires commitment, consistency, and patience. Thus far, they’ve done a spectacular job in bringing residents together and providing an identity to an area of Miami that had been lacking. Undoubtedly, this is an exciting time for this emerging neighborhood. In the coming year, it will be interesting to see the type of capital this area is able to attract from other developers and/or investment groups.

A Look at the Miami Industrial Loft Market

I took a drive through the Performing Arts District today and noticed the progress being made on the development known as Filling Station Lofts. This will be the second loft development of The Intrepid Real Estate Company in Miami, and I, for one, am looking forward to it.

With the exception of a few overpriced units being left until the end of construction, Filling Station Lofts has been sold out for over a year. The Intrepid Real Estate Company, under the direction of developer Henry Harper, first brought the New-York-style industrial loft to Miami with their first development known as Parc Lofts, located catty-corner to the development site of Filling Station Lofts. The bold and unique marketing pieces of The Intrepid Real Estate Company caught people’s eyes over a year ago. This one, entitled “BubbleProof”, provided words of wisdom to those looking to purchase one of their loft units during a frenzied real estate market. Simply put, their message was that a person’s love for owning a unique space, such as a loft, should be the motivating factor behind making such a purchase, and not that person’s love for money, nor the expectation thereof.

The industrial loft concept is truly unique to Miami. I often get people from cities such as Chicago and New York who contact me looking for a large, raw, open space and the only building that comes to mind is Parc Lofts. They can’t understand how there aren’t other industrial loft buildings throughout Miami. Simply put…Miami didn’t undergo the Industrial Revolution like many of the major cities in the North. We, therefore, lack the large abandoned warehouses found in the North which were later converted into lofts. Miami has had to rely on developer’s, such as Henry Harper, to build these loft buildings from the ground up.

There are a few industrial-style loft buildings in South Beach, but none that offer the type of space like Parc Lofts. With loft sizes that reach a mind-boggling 5,436 square feet, Parc Lofts was built with SIZE in mind. Market forces have created a large premium built into those units at Parc Lofts with over 2,000 square feet. If someone needs a space of that size then Parc Lofts is the only building in Miami that can offer it. Zoned as a live/work building, there are many potential ways that a space of this size can be used. Most who own these units at Parc Lofts are fully aware of the premium that their units fetch. While the number of potential buyers out there for this type of size may be scarce, the number of lofts of this size in Miami is even scarcer.

Parc Lofts – lofts for sale
Parc Lofts – rentals