Michael Stern with rendering of 1 Southside Park (DS Development Group and SHoP Architects)
New York and Miami developer Michael Stern secured an $86 million loan for his planned mixed-use Brickell tower called 1 Southside Park.
New York-based Maxim Capital Group provided the acquisition and construction financing to Stern’s JDS Development Group, according to a press release. The 64-story tower, between Southwest 11th and 12th streets and Southwest Second and First avenues in Miami, will have apartments, office space, a hotel and food and beverage components.
A Walker & Dunlop team that includes Aaron Appel and Keith Kurland arranged the financing. It replaces debt that carried a higher rate, according to the release.
The tower, designed by SHoP Architects, is slated to include 1,175 apartments, 190,000 square feet of office space, 10,000 square feet of retail space, 1,400 parking spaces, and a 200-key Treehouse Hotel. It will mark the first Treehouse in the U.S. The brand is owned by Barry Sternlicht’s SH Hotels & Resorts.
Rockwell Group and James Corner Field Operations also are working on the design.
Construction is underway. The developer completed the two-level basement and is working on foundation work, according to the release.
Two years ago, investor Southside Place LLC sued Stern and an affiliate of JDS, alleging the developer owed Southside Place $10 million for securing the rights to build the mixed-use tower. That litigation is still ongoing, court records show.
Stern’s deal with the city of Miami, inked in 2020, allows him to build the mixed-use tower in exchange for public benefits, including building an $8 million fire station for the city on the ground floor, and making a roughly $5 million investment in the community that calls for a $3 million refurbishment of Southside Park. The neighboring Southside Park was declared a brownfield, which allows the developer to pursue tax credits to clean up the contaminated property.
In 2019, Stern paid $23.5 million for land adjacent to the fire station and park, which included three parcels owned by CS Brickell LLC at 145 Southwest 12th Street and a pair of 50-year-old, three-story apartment buildings. The buildings were tied to John Polit, a financial adviser sentenced to three years in prison in Ecuador for his role in the international Odebrecht bribery scandal.
Southside Park borders the Brickell Metrorail station, and the development will be built immediately north of Soma at Brickell apartment complex, which was completed in 2015.
Stern has been ramping up in South Florida. Nearby in Brickell, the developer is partnering with Major Food Group on Major, 259-unit branded condo tower planned for the site at 888 Brickell Avenue. Sales are expected to begin this summer, with prices ranging from $1.6 million to $11 million, excluding penthouses.
