Genting Nears $1B Jackpot for Waterfront Site in Miami

Malaysian gaming giant Genting, which rolled the dice on the sale of a prime waterfront property in Downtown Miami in November, appears poised to hit the jackpot: a $1B deal for the 16-acre parcel.

The bidding for one of the most coveted sites on the waterfront in downtown Miami—a former headquarters of the Miami Herald—has attracted nine offers, including five that each are in excess of $1B.

According to broker Avison Young, which marketed the listing, the five mega-bids will proceed to the next stage the acquisition. According to a release, the broker is giving the top bidders until 5 pm today to submit capital stack plans, pricing and proposed due diligence and closing dates.

Genting appears assured of shattering the previous record for a land sale in Miami-Dade County, the $363M purchase of a 2.5-acre property that was purchased last year by Citadel hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin when he relocated from Chicago.

When the 16-acre site at 1431 North Bayshore Drive in Miami’s Arts & Entertainment District was put on the market by Genting in November, the Malaysian gaming conglomerate said it was seeking a minimum of $1B after abandoning plans to develop a casino there.

The Malaysian gaming giant bought most of the parcel in 2011 for $236M and assumed a mortgage for the rest of it, including the Omni Center building a few months later.

Genting’s original plans for the site include a hotel-casino, and several retail and residential buildings. The firm attempted several times to obtain a casino license but could not get state officials to grant it an exemption from a Florida law that gives Native American tribes the exclusive right to operate casinos in the Sunshine State.

Genting said it will be keep in its other Miami properties, including the Hilton Miami Downtown hotel and the Omni Center.

The Herald building was torn down in 2015. The site has been leased for events that include the Art Miami and Context fairs.

According to Avison Young, the site can accommodate up to 20M SF of mixed-use development and comes with a series of entitlements from the city. The site is one of the largest undeveloped parcels on the waterfront, offering 800 feet of frontage on Biscayne Bay.

As the site is currently zoned, it will permit a high-rise development of up to 60 stories, including 500 residential units per acre—a total of 7,800 units.

Miami’s urban core, including Edgewater, Wynwood, the Arts & Entertainment District, downtown and Brickell, has recorded over $1 billion in land sales over the past two years, according to Real Capital Analytics data provided by Colliers International South Florida

Last year, GlobeSt. reported that developers are targeting hundreds of aging condo apartment buildings in Miami Beach for acquisition so they can tear them down and build new luxury residential towers, zeroing in on towers approaching a 40-year deadline to recertify structural integrity.