Moishe Mana loaded more properties into his Wynwood portfolio in Miami with a $25.5 million development site acquisition.
Mana, who is arguably the largest landowner in Wynwood and downtown Miami, acquired a 0.7-acre assemblage at 2200-2230 Northwest Second Avenue and 224 Northwest 22nd Terrace, the buyer and the seller confirmed to The Real Deal. The site is approved for a five-story mixed-use development that could be either offices or residential with ground-floor retail. If Mana were to capitalize on Florida’s Live Local Act, he could potentially develop a 450-foot-tall mixed-use skyscraper with 789 apartments, an offering shows.
But he would not build a residential project on the site, Mana told TRD. “This is not a site for residential,” he said. “We see it as a business center, and the properties are generating income. It is very much in line with our other properties in Wynwood.”
The assemblage, consisting of two retail buildings and a parking lot, is surrounded by other Mana-owned parcels.
Ari Dispenza with Miami-based Central Commercial Real Estate represented the seller, an affiliate of New York-based Abingdon Square Partners, led by Benjamin Atkins. Abingdon paid $5.1 million in 2013 for the property, records show. The assemblage was listed last year with an asking price of $31 million, but Abingdon took it off the market, Atkins told TRD.
“Moise owns all the properties around this assemblage,” Atkins said. “When it got more serious, he and I were able to reach an off-market agreement. He has very exciting plans.”
In Wynwood, the height of buildings is capped at five to eight stories, but developers can go as high as 12 stories in some areas of the neighborhood by offering public benefits. The assemblage purchased by Mana is capped at 70 units and five stories, but the developer could win an extra three stories and 55 more units by providing public benefits, last year’s offering states.
The memo also noted that a buyer could take advantage of the Live Local Act, which allows developers to build new mixed-use or residential projects that can be as tall as buildings within one mile. In exchange, developers must set aside at least 40 percent of units for households earning no more than 120 percent of the area median income for at least 30 years.
Among the developers planning Live Local Act projects in Wynwood include Brooklyn-based LivWrk. The firm is seeking city of Miami approval for three 45-story towers with 1,363 apartments, 23,200 square feet of retail and 912 parking spaces on the northwest corner of North Miami Avenue and Northwest 24th Street.
In July, Mana landed a $150 million refinancing for 56 properties in Wynwood that surround his Mana Wynwood Convention Center at 318 Northwest 23rd Street in Miami. The venue was not part of the refinancing.
Most of the parcels are along 21st, 22nd and 23rd streets, both east and west of Fifth Avenue, where Mana is planning Mana Wynwood, a 30-acre mixed-use development that was approved in 2016, but that project has not broken ground.
