MIAMI-Key Colony Plaza, a 30,527-square foot mixed-use property in the village of Key Biscayne, was recently sold to a Canadian investor based in Nova Scotia for $13.7 million. The seller was Tesaurus Holdings, whose principal, Fritz Scharenberg, also owns commercial real estate in Europe, says Christian Johannsen, senior vice president at Colliers International in Miami, who represented the seller.

Key Colony, which was built by Scharenberg, opened in August  2008. The property has 12,000-square feet of retail, 12,000 square feet of office and 6,000 square feet of storage space. Lead tenants include Starbucks, Mount Sinai Medical Center and Origin Asian Bistro & Sushi. The property was 96% occupied at closing. The transaction was a cash deal. After a letter of intent was received by the seller, the sale closed in less than 30 days, says Johannsen.

Scharenberg bought the land for Key Colony Plaza more than ten years ago, but had difficulty having his plans approved for the property, because he had wanted to put 42 apartments and seven townhouses into the mixed-use development and the village master plan did not permit residential units in a commercial district. The original project was to be known as the Key Colony Village. After a protracted legal fight, Scharenberg altered his plans for his property.

“In this market, there’s an investor flight to safety,” says Johannsen, referring to the recent sale of Key Colony Plaza. “The buyer was attracted to this property based on its location and quality,” he says. “It’s a triple A asset in a land-constrained environment with extraordinary high demographics.”

Key Biscayne is an island community just a few miles from Miami's Brickell Avenue. It has an average median household income of  $150,000, says Johannsen. President Richard Nixon had a winter home on Key Biscayne, which has a full time registered population of a little over 10,000.  That population balloons to roughly  40,000 in the winter tourist season, says Johannsen, although the village also enjoys an influx of “snow birds which come from south of the border in the summer,” when South America is in its winter season, he says.  The area was the site of a coconut plantation in the first half of the 20^th Century.