IMC Equity Group ceo Yoram Izhak and the property at the closed Johnson & Wales University campus in North Miami with the other properties set to be redeveloped (Google Maps, IMC Equity Group, Getty)
A year after purchasing a portion of the closed Johnson & Wales University campus in North Miami, Yoram Izhak’s IMC Equity Group plans to develop over 500 apartments on the property, The Real Deal has learned.
IMC Equity wants to build a 10-story to 12-story rental building with up to 338 units at 12350 Biscayne Boulevard. The site now houses a vacant student residential building and a former university office. IMC also plans to convert the dormitories it owns on the campus into apartments, according to Carlos Segrera, chief investment officer at IMC.
IMC has not yet filed an application to the city for the apartment building, which would require a rezoning. The site is within the city’s Transit Station Overlay District, a designation adopted in 2017 that allows for the 338 units, Segrera said.
The development firm’s $4 million renovation of the existing dorms is underway, with completion expected in November. The conversion will yield 177 apartments, or the same number of total existing dorm units at IMC’s buildings at 1705 and 1735 Northeast 124th Street, 1740 and 1725 Northeast 125th Street, 1700 Northeast 133rd Street, and 13025 and 13035 Emerald Drive.
The newly renovated units will rent for roughly $1,800 a month for a two-bedroom apartment, according to Segrera. Although this is market-rate, it’s still a reprieve from South Florida’s skyrocketing rents for new projects. The conversion will create “nice Class C units,” he said. The dorms were built in the 1960s and 1970s, property records show.
IMC, based in North Miami, was among the development firms that scooped up portions of the roughly 25-acre JWU campus, which offered culinary and other hospitality programs. It closed after completing the 2020-21 academic year.
The university, which also shuttered its Denver location, allowed students to continue at its main campus in Providence, Rhode Island, or at its Charlotte, North Carolina, campus.
Property Markets Group put the entire North Miami campus under contract for just under $60 million last summer. Since then, it has flipped chunks of the property.
IMC bought its portion in three purchases for a combined $29.2 million, records show. Deeds show the seller is listed as JWU, but the deal involved PMG assigning its ownership to IMC, according to Segrera.
IMC also is poised to flip one of its campus properties to Jon Paul Pérez and Jorge Pérez’s Related Group for an undisclosed amount. Coconut Grover-based Related is under contract to buy 2.3 vacant acres at 1650 Northeast 124th Street, where it wants to build the eight-story Manor Biscayne with 382 apartment units. The project would rise west across the street from IMC’s planned new apartment development.
In January, Tate Capital bought JWU’s former recreation center at 1600 Northeast 126th Street from PMG for $10.7 million. Tate has leased the building, called the Wildcat Center, to the city of North Miami under a 15-year term with a purchase option in the third year.
