From left: Urbanica Hotel partners Diego Colmenero and Charlie Porchetto in front of the Urbanica Meridian Hotel at 418 Meridian Avenue in Miami Beach (Urbanica Hotels, Google Maps)
Cambridge Lansdowne paid $30.5 million for the Urbanica Meridian Hotel in Miami Beach’s South of Fifth neighborhood, marking the third deal this month in the tri-county region’s resurgent hospitality sector.
An affiliate of the South Miami-based real estate investment firm bought the Art Deco historic building with 70 rooms at 418-420 Meridian Avenue, records show. Cambridge Lansdowne, led by co-founding partners Pedro Miranda and Daniel Ribenboim Simon, paid $435,714 per key.
The buyer obtained an $18.3 million mortgage from Bradesco BAC Florida Bank, records show.
Paul Weimer and Christian Charre with CBRE represented the buyer and the seller, an affiliate of Urbanica Hotels, led by principals Charlie Porchetto and Diego Colmenero.
In 2013, Urbanica Hotels paid $5.5 million for the four-story building completed in 1925, records show. Three years later, the Miami Beach-based hotel development company added 16,749 square feet at the back of the Meridian Hotel.
Cambridge Lansdowne’s purchase comes on the heels of another big hotel deal in South Florida. Electra America Hospitality Group and Korman Communities paid $83.9 million for a 217-micro-unit rental building in downtown West Palm Beach that was recently transformed into an AKA Hotel. Also this month, Bethesda, Maryland-based DiamondRock Hospitality bought a Kimpton-branded hotel in Fort Lauderdale for $18.9 million.
And in February, Utah-based Dynamic City Capital paid $74.3 million for a new AC Hotel by Marriott near the beach in Fort Lauderdale.
New hotel projects are also in the works, including a Tru by Hilton in Miramar and a Courtyard by Marriott in Hollywood.
The Meridian Hotel’s new owner is a fresh player in the South Florida real estate market. Cambridge Lansdowne was formed in February, according to Florida corporate records. Its principals have real estate investments in other parts of the U.S. and South America.
Miranda is co-founder and managing principal of Cambridge Landmark, a Miami-based real estate investment firm that owns two hotels in Orlando, and one hotel each in Milwaukee, Philadelphia and Sacramento, according to the company’s website.
Simon is the portfolio manager for Newfoundland Capital Management, a Sao Paulo-based private equity firm that focuses on real estate investments in South America, according to the company’s website.
With the sale of Urbanica Meridian, Urbanica Hotels plans to focus on the firm’s new flagship projects, according to a press release. The company is developing a pair of 200-room hotels called Urbanica Beach in Miami Beach’s North Beach neighborhood, and Urbanica Biscayne in Miami’s Edgewater neighborhood.
