10-Building Office, Retail Portfolio Sells for $54M

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MIAMI-SSR Realty, in conjunction with Terranova Corp. affiliate Gables Beach Ltd. and a Madison Marquette affiliate, has purchased a 10-building real estate portfolio in South Florida for nearly $54.1 million.The seller was Starwood Urban and the deal closed Oct. 26. The portfolio consists of two office buildings in Miami Beach and eight retail buildings in Coral Gables. Gables Beach Ltd. will serve as the managing member of the acquiring entities and will assume management and leasing duties for the whole portfolio.The office buildings, at 1674 and 1688 Meridian Ave., total 118,985 sf. Tenants include Sony, EMI Entertainment, Hugo Boss and Mellon Bank. The buildings also have ground-floor retail space.The retail buildings, located along Miracle Mile, total 78,751 sf. They are fully leased to tenants such as Starbucks, Atlanta Bread Co., Saladworks Café, Mia Cucina, Baja Fresh, Relax the Back and Radio Shack.”As Downtown Coral Gables becomes a 24-hour city with hundreds of new residences adding to the intense daytime population of its many office buildings, we expect tenant sales and rents to grow significantly in the next few years,” Terranova chairman Stephen Bittel says in a statement. According to Bittel, the office buildings are excellent assets and the investment in the buildings fits with Terranova’s outlook for Miami Beach. The 26-year-old real estate services and investment company relocated its headquarters from Miami to Miami Beach this month, taking two floors at 801 Arthur Godfrey Rd., a building it bought two years ago. “If there was any doubt about our huge commitment to Miami Beach, we made it clear by voting with our dollars and the relocation of our entire firm,” Bittel says.The 10-building purchase from Starwood is the second deal with SSR and Terranova in four months. SSR also paid $13.3 million for the 225,760-sf former Federal Mogul Corp. industrial building in Weston and retained Terranova Corp., which represented SSR Realty in its acquisition of the property, to lease and manage it, renamed Weston Distribution Center.”We remain incredibly bullish on the strength of the South Florida commercial real estate market,” Bittel says. “The unabated population growth and continued urbanization of our community will inevitably lead to a continued rise in rental rates and values. Both geographically and financially, we have nowhere to go but higher.”