This Week’s South Florida Deal Sheet: Publix Drops $224M On Florida Shopping Centers
Southeast grocery giant Publix paid $224M for seven Florida retail centers where it is an anchor tenant.
PGIM Real Estate, the asset management arm of Prudential Financial, sold the portfolio, according to a release. It includes four South Florida locations, including two Davie strip centers that Publix paid a combined $83M to acquire.
The other South Florida properties Publix acquired were Crestwood Square at 11963 Southern Blvd. in Royal Palm Beach and Woods Walk Plaza at 9835 Lake Worth Road in Wellington.
Publix also purchased two plazas in Kissimmee, Town Center at Orange Lake and Village Shops at Bellalago, and the Gladiolus Gateway in Fort Myers, a spokesperson for JLL confirmed. The grocery chain has a history of buying plazas where it is the anchor tenant.
PGIM was represented by a JLL team of Danny Finkle, Eric Williams, Jorge Portela and Kim Flores.
SALES
Cloud computing firm Citrix sold its Fort Lauderdale headquarters for $37M in a sale-leaseback that includes a significant footprint reduction, records collected by property intelligence platform Vizzda confirm.
Maksim Slyusarchuk, founder and CEO of Hollywood-based A&D Mortgage, purchased the two buildings at 899 W. Cypress Creek Road and 851 W. Cypress Creek Road, along with an adjacent parking garage. Slyusarchuk took out a $30M mortgage from First Horizon Bank to close the deal.
The seven- and nine-story office buildings total 276K SF. Cloud Software Group, the parent company of Citrix, signed a 12-year lease with two five-year extensions after the sale to maintain its footprint at one of two buildings. Cloud Software Group cut around 12% of its workforce at the beginning of 2024, a year after laying off 15% of its staff.
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MG Developer, the South Florida-based firm best known for building condos in Coral Gables, paid $36M for the Regency Miami Airport by Sonesta at 1000 NW 42nd Ave., according to records from Vizzda.
Hospitality investment and management firm OPB Capital Group sold the 176-key, five-story hotel surrounded by surface parking. The deal breaks down to roughly $205K per room.
MG Developer plans to continue to operate the hotel while adding a 220-unit apartment project on a vacant portion of the site, a spokesperson told The Real Deal.
The firm is also looking outside its traditional Coral Gables market with the planned development of two apartment projects, Doral Parc and Metro Parc South in Hialeah.
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DGE Investments, a San Francisco-based entity led by David Alkosser, acquired 247 of the 288 units at the garden-style Breezes at Paim-Aire multifamily development in Pompano Beach, according to a release.
The buyer paid an undisclosed price for 86% of the units in the property, which had been acquired by New York-based Axonic Properties starting with a 153-unit, $25M bulk transaction in 2021.
Axonic converted the units to apartments and reached 95% occupancy before selling them to DGE, which plans to continue operating the units as rentals. An Apartments.com listing for the property has one- and two-bedroom units available from $1,845 per month to $2,400 per month.
A Berkadia team of Yoav Yuhjtman, Roberto Pesant, Jaret Turkell and Omar Morales represented the seller.
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Boston-based Longpoint paid $27M to acquire a three-warehouse portfolio spanning 114K SF at 9942 NW 89th Court in Medley, according to Vizzda records.
The seller, an entity managed by Miami-based Tropic Oil Corp. President Stephen Gorey, paid $8M for the 5-acre property in 2014. The property serves as Tropic Oil Corp.’s headquarters, according to the company’s website.
Longpoint has been snapping up South Florida industrial properties in recent years. It dropped a combined $262M in December to acquire a 25-building portfolio in the region from Seagis. A month later, it paid $30M for six more warehouses in Medley and Doral, according to The Real Deal.
FINANCING
Palm Beach-based Forman Capital provided a $55M bridge loan to Invesca Development to fund the conversion of 214 apartments into condos at 450 E. Atlantic Blvd. in Pompano Beach, according to a release.
The capital will allow the Plantation-based developer to upgrade the units for sale at Envy, which includes two 11-story buildings and units ranging from 700 SF studios to three-bedroom apartments spanning just over 1K SF.
Amenities at Envy include a pool with cabanas, a wine lounge, a spa, an outdoor movie theater, a pet spa and a 26-slip private marina.
The loan was originated by Forman Capital’s Ben Jacobson, Scott Mehlman and Ty Regnier, with BayBridge Real Estate Capital brokering the deal.
Envy was built in 2020 as a luxury multifamily project, with Invesca refinancing the property for $55M with Deutsche Bank in March 2022. Units are still being marketed for rent on Apartments.com for between about $2K per month and $4,570 per month, with a two-month free-rent signing bonus.
PEOPLE
Broker Sebastian Misiewicz is departing CBRE’s South Florida office and joining Lee & Associates as a principal. Ethan Amar also joined the firm as an associate as his second commercial real estate job after starting his career as an analyst at NNN Capital, according to a release.
Misiewicz was a senior associate at CBRE, helping close nearly $1B in commercial sales alongside the firm’s South Florida capital markets team. Misiewicz, a graduate of the University of Gdansk in Poland, has also worked at Marcus & Millichap, where he specialized in office and industrial sales.
The pair of new brokers will split their time between the Miami and Deerfield Beach offices. Misiewicz was based out of Fort Lauderdale, while Amar’s LinkedIn profile says he worked for NNN Capital in Orlando.
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Mabelle Perez joined Matthews Real Estate Investment Services as an associate vice president in Fort Lauderdale and will specialize in hotel assets, according to a release.
Despite having only begun her career in 2018, Perez was most recently the director for hotels and hospitality at Berkadia. During her tenure there, Perez was involved in more than 30 transactions totaling more than $370M.
She is also the director of programs for the Miami branch of the Commercial Real Estate Women Network.
THIS AND THAT
MG Developer donated $2M to the Baptist Health Foundation for Baptist Health Doctors Hospital in Coral Gables, according to a release.
The developer is headquartered less than 3 miles from the hospital and is building The Village at Coral Gables nearby. The 48-unit collection of townhomes, villas, lofts and flats is scheduled for delivery in the second quarter.
The donation is meant to help cement The Village as a wellness-conscious community that emphasizes the importance of healthy living, according to the release.
To celebrate the gift, residents at The Village will be recognized as part of Baptist Health Foundation's Giving Society and MG Developer will be featured at the hospital as one of its leading donors.
