Victor Azria of 25-year-old Planet Realty Corp., the broker who represented the French buyer in the recent land sale, tells GlobeSt.com the owner plans to build two 500,000-sf towers and call it Brickell City Center.
The first tower, which will break ground within a year, will be comprised of luxury rental apartments, says Azria, who is the project manager and will develop the property. The second tower will be developed based on what the market demands. Possibilities Azria named include office space or a hotel.
The towers will include shops, clubs, restaurants and bars, and will feature fountains indoors as well as outside.
"We're going to try to put life into the evening in the area," Azria said, adding that the area is dead at nighttime.
The entire project, including the land, will cost between $150 million and $200 million, Azria says. He has been working with architect Jim Nichols on the towers.
The possibility of more office space has some major area brokerages concerned. In its second-quarter office report, Cushman & Wakefield of Florida Inc. says "the Brickell Avenue submarket continues to worry market observers." The vacancy rate in that area rose 4.3 percentage points to 16.6% in the last six months, mainly due to an increase in sublease space.
Brickell City Center LLC bought the land at 901 Brickell Ave. for $18 million cash from New York-based Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States.
Jack Lowell, vice chairman of Coral Gables, FL-based Codina Realty Services Inc. ONCOR International and one of the brokers who represented the seller in the land deal, tells GlobeSt.com the new owner is putting the land back up for sale short term to see if he can turn a quick profit.
Azrias isn't ruling out that option. "We know what we paid for it," he tells GlobeSt.com, adding that if somebody wants to pay more for the land, they will consider the offer.
When Brickell City Center LLC bought the land, it had been on the market for a little more than six months, Lowell says. The area is considered a prime location, as evidenced by the fact that one block away, the 415,000-square-foot office building One Brickell Square was just sold for top dollar—nearly $200 per sf, or more than $80 million.
Tere Blanca de Ulloa, senior vice president of Codina, also represented the seller in the land transaction.
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