MIAMI- A funny thing happened to Downtown Doral on its way to completion. The name of the joint-venture partners for the project changed, but the man playing the leading role in the development, Armando Codina, has remained the same.   Doral is a 120-acre mixed-use redevelopment in Doral, FL near Miami International Airport.

In 2006, institutional investors advised by JP Morgan picked the Coral Gables-based Flagler Development Group to redevelop the Koger Executive Center where Downtown Doral is now taking shape. At the time, the president, CEO and chairman of Flagler was Armando Codina. Earlier that year, Codina’s old company, the Codina group, had merged with Florida East Coast Industries and had become Florida East Coast Industries’ Flagler Development Group.

From 2006 until 2008, Codina served all three top posts at Flagler--chairman, president and CEO--but then stepped down, choosing Jose Hevia to be president and CEO, while retaining the position of chairman. A few months ago, Codina created Codina Partners, which is designed to be an investment vehicle for his own family’s investments.  In May, Codina Partners bought a stake in Downtown Doral, replacing the Flagler Development Group as joint venture partner in the development.  

Shortly after Codina Partners became joint venture partner for Downtown Doral, the partners secured a five-year, fixed-rate loan for $30 million through Northwestern Mutual insurance company on a four-property office portfolio, part of the original Koger Center, totaling 368,331 square feet. HFF’s Miami office brokered the deal for the borrowers. The four office buildings will be the only office buildings remaining from the Koger Center development at Downtown Doral.

 The four office buildings are adjacent to the Doral Resort and close to the  State Road 836 Expressway and the Florida Turnpike. The properties, which were renovated in 2005 and 2006, are 95% leased.

“The deal for the financing of the office portfolio was highly-sought-after, which is refreshing, especially for an office property,” says Paul Stasaitis, HFF’s senior managing director in Miami.

Codina Partners will continue to use two Flagler subsidiaries, Flagler Construction and Flagler Real Estate Services, in the Downtown Doral project, according to a spokeswoman for Flagler.

In the course of the redevelopment, Koger Executive Center, which had one million square feet of office space, will largely be demolished except for the four afore-mentioned office buildings. Thus far, seven buildings at the Koger Center have been demolished, one was renovated and  17 more will be torn down during the seven-to-ten-year buildout period.

When completed, Downtown Doral will have 2,840 residential units and more than one million square feet of commercial and open space, including 180,000-square feet of retail and 400,000-square feet of new, Class A office space. The master plan and planned-unit-development-zoning for Downtown Doral were approved in 2005 and 2006.

At this point, Cordoba, a 224-unit luxury rental apartment development was just completed and later this year, a 150,000-square- foot Class A office building, known as 8333 Downtown Doral, is scheduled for completion. City Hall for Doral, also a part of the project, is expected to be finished in 2011.