When South Florida’s biggest development site deal so far this year closed for $88.8 million, it marked a new player’s entrance to the region: Kasumigaseki Capital.
The Tokyo-based company splashed into Miami with the purchase of a 0.7-acre lot previously planned for a branded tower within the massive Miami Worldcenter mixed-use complex.
Kasumigaseki paid $121.6 million per acre for the site on the corner of Northeast 10th Street and Northeast Second Avenue, using $45 million in seller financing.
The deal gives Kasumigaseki a prime slice of buildable land in downtown Miami –– a deal that most buyers would eagerly boast about, hurriedly putting out news releases with glossy renderings of the planned project.
Yet, Kasumigaseki has stayed mum, breaking from the Magic City’s style defined by hype and love of media exposure.
Kasumigaseki is “trying to keep this thing quiet,” a source familiar with the deal said.
Kasumigaseki, a 15-year-old firm publicly traded on the Tokyo stock exchange, focuses on development of warehouses under its Logi Flag brand, as well as of hotels under its Fāv Hospitality Group, according to its website and news releases. While its portfolio is mostly in Japan, it’s been in expansion mode to elsewhere in Asia, including Dubai, Bangkok, Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur.
The Miami Worldcenter site is Kasumigaseki’s first known venture to the Western Hemisphere.
The company’s preliminary plan is for a pair of towers, most likely consisting of condos and a hotel that could share a podium, the source familiar with the deal said. It’s expected to joint venture with a local developer, with talks ongoing with Boca Raton-based Falcone Group, though a partnership has not been finalized, the source added.
Falcone, led by Miami Worldcenter master co-developer Art Falcone, already had ties to the property. Records show the selling entity traces to Falcone, which in 2024 filed a proposal for a 53-story branded condo and hotel.
But a Falcone representative said the firm sold its stake in the site ownership entity about five years ago to an investment group led by Marc Roberts, co-founder of the E11even Miami nightclub and condos brand, and that Falcone was only a development manager for the ownership group in the 2024 proposal.
Falcone’s representative declined to weigh in on whether the firm is in JV talks with Kasumigaseki. Roberts and Kasumigaseki didn’t return requests for comment.
Kasumigaseki may announce its purchase and planned project in the coming weeks, another source said.
Until then, The Real Deal put together a sketch of the company’s history, portfolio and business model.
Who is Kasumigaseki?
Kasumigaseki is a newcomer to South Florida, but in Asia it has a 15-year history of quickly growing and seizing on in-demand sectors.
Hiroyuki Ogawa started the firm in 2011, initially investing in shopping centers and then expanding to renewable energy by installing solar panels on a retail property, according to Kasumigaseki’s website.
After doing some real estate consulting, including for condominium developments, and then rebranding as Kasumigaseki –– eponymous to Tokyo’s Kasumigaseki district, home to the company’s headquarters and also known as a hub for government offices –– the company turned to industrial and hotel development. It also invests in health care facilities, seizing on the demand for hospice and other senior care centers due to Japan’s rapidly aging population.
It is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Prime Market for blue chip firms and has a market capitalization of about 159.3 billion yen (nearly $1 billion).
Ogawa is the company’s director and chairman, and Koshiro Komoto is the CEO.
Kasumigaseki’s portfolio consists of roughly 25 Logi Flag cold- and dry-storage warehouses, as well as automated warehouses in Japan, including those planned, under construction and completed, the company’s website shows. Many are clustered near logistics nodes, with the automated buildings relying on AI and robotics for efficiency and less human labor.
Last year, it launched logistics development in Malaysia, planning to start construction of a 123,300-square-foot automated cold storage facility this fall near Kuala Lumpur, according to a news release.
Kasumigaseki has developed 18 hotels and has a pipeline of 41 primarily under two core brands: Fāv, which taps demand for apartment-style hotel rooms to accommodate three or more people, and its Fāv Lux luxury offshoot, according to a Strategy Advisors investor research report published in December. The seven x seven brand and edit x seven brands are in Japanese resort cities, while the Base Layer Hotel brand is an urban business hotel.
Its growth markets so far are Indonesia and Thailand, while it entered the UAE in 2022, at first investing in and re-selling properties and now starting development. Last year, Kasumigaseki joint ventured with Japanese rental residences firm Daito Trust Construction, including on luxury residential projects in Dubai.
Kasumigaseki has hammered out a business model that relies on JV partners, with the firm usually holding a 66 percent stake in a JV and the partner holding the balance.
Its website also outlines its fund-based strategy that allows it to keep its books asset-light, while earning fees: After buying and entitling a site, Kasumigaseki sells it to development fund investors and remains involved with the project, earning fund management and developer fees.
Once a project is finished, it is sold to core fund investors and Kasumigaseki receives a “success fee,” its website shows. The firm also manages completed projects.
Miami, a magnet for Japanese investors? Not exactly
South Florida, a coveted real estate market supercharged over the past half-decade due to an influx of out-of-state businesses and residents, also has long been a pull for foreign developers, largely from across Latin America.
The tri-county region has consistently been devoid of major investment and development by companies from Japan, which seem to have gravitated to New York.
In 2023, Japanese investors returned to the New York commercial real estate market, after they targeted skyscrapers in the 1980s but then went bust in the early 1990s.
Mori Trust, led by a family that played a role in Tokyo’s growth, bought a half stake in SL Green’s 245 Park Avenue tower in Midtown in 2023 at a $2 billion valuation. Also that year, Sowa Kousan paid $12 million for a 10-unit apartment building in Yorkville, and another $9.5 million for an eight-unit building on the Upper East Side.
Prior to the pandemic, asset manager Tokyo Trust Capital bought a Soho mixed-use building for more than $103 million, and a 416-unit multifamily complex in Westchester County, which it made in partnership with MC Real Estate Partners, for $143 million.
South Florida’s most recent notable Japanese investment came in 2016, when Sumitomo Corporation of America, a subsidiary of Tokyo-based Sumitomo, paid $220 million for the Miami Tower office building in downtown Miami. In 2022, Sumitomo sold the tower for $60 million less than what it had paid to DRA Advisors and CP Group.
