When a 4.25-acre bayfront site in Miami’s Brickell district came on the market, conventional wisdom dictated that one of South Florida’s real estate dynasties would claim it.
The Pérez family’s Related Group was in the running, while others that also have shaped Miami’s skyline showed some interest but had their hands full with other deals, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Instead, the buyer was Oak Row Equities, a firm not yet a decade old, and with one finished project at the time to show for.
“It was a combination of them having the least deal risk because of how quickly they were moving with the lowest due diligence and timing, their deposit schedule and paying a fair price,” the source said.
Led by Erik Rutter, 33, and David Weitz, 37, Oak Row has moved on Miami’s most coveted neighborhoods for the past eight years, stacking prime development sites and advancing projects while the city’s established players watched. The pair of New Yorkers met at Tishman Speyer, bonded and decided to go out on their own — backed by Weitz’s father, Perry Weitz, a high-powered asbestos plaintiffs attorney who is among the most formidable litigators in one of the most lucrative legal fields.
The elder Weitz seeded Oak Row’s projects, including their breakout 2018 deal: a $14 million all-cash purchase of an industrial adaptive reuse campus in Wynwood that’s now The Oasis office, a dining, retail and events complex. Since then, the firm started construction on two apartment towers in Edgewater, with two more planned in North Miami Beach and downtown Miami. Last year, it delivered its first ground-up project, the mixed-use Wynwood Plaza.
The path looked steady and deliberate. Then, in late 2024, they went into contract on the Brickell site that allows for the development of multiple supertalls. By the time they closed the record $520 million purchase in December, they had brought Vlad Doronin’s OKO Group into the deal, announcing plans for a luxury hotel and branded condos project — and sending a clear message: Oak Row came to Miami to play at the very top of the real estate market.
Both Weitz and Rutter hail from well-established New York families and join a long list of New Yorkers finding fertile ground for development in Miami, aided by its business-friendly politics and booming real estate. For many, South Florida marked a second chapter in their careers, offering a reprieve from New York’s competition, tight labor market and rigid development laws. But for Oak Row, Miami was its birthplace.
Their timing was fortuitous. They planted their flag two years before the pandemic, then rode the ensuing boom, as an influx of businesses and well-heeled residents arrived and kept up velocity in the more recent blue-to-red-state migration. But luck is only part of their story.
Their rise is also rooted in a combination of unwavering confidence, the kind that comes from spending a lifetime in top professional circles, along with a touch of bravado, apparent skill and diligence, and the freedom that deep-pocketed generational wealth affords.
“Maybe we were young and dumb at the time.”
Their Brickell site bid was among the highest, surpassing what some well-established Miami players were willing to pay, and came with the best terms. It became the yardstick of their momentum, with longtime market watchers noting not just how fast Rutter and Weitz have moved but also how much further they could go.
“They really hit every major submarket in Miami. That’s really, really incredible for the time they have been here,” Wynwood broker Tony Arellano said. “Give these guys two or three more cycles, and they are going to have 20 or 30 buildings under their belt.”
Yet with big projects comes big exposure. Rising costs from the Iran War, uncertainty over tariffs and crushed expectations for more interest rate cuts this year are headwinds nationwide, and South Florida carries its own additional risks: a nagging multifamily oversupply, a crowded branded residences pipeline and some looming questions over its office market.
Rutter and Weitz aren’t fazed. They have hedged against tariffs and interest rates, they said, by procuring materials from overseas early and including rate caps on their loans, and are confident in their branded condo project and that the multifamily squeeze will ease soon. And it’s not the first time they’re seemingly going against the tide, they said, adding that their Wynwood Plaza has been a success — even though the project had naysayers when they started it.
“Most brokers in the market said, ‘You are crazy. Absolutely don’t do it. There’s no way,’” Rutter said. “Dave and I, maybe we were young and dumb at the time, maybe we just knew we were right, we said, ‘Thanks for the advice,’ and we just continued to push through. We have always faced people looking at us like we are crazy.”
Head start
Rutter grew up going to construction sites for projects by his father, New York-based developer Mitchell Rutter of Essex Capital Partners.
Although he earned an English and History degree at Georgetown University, Rutter landed real estate-related internships while in college at big-name firms, including at M&T Bank, Cushman & Wakefield and Starwood Property Trust.
“For sure growing up in New York and my dad being in the real estate business absolutely helped open doors. There’s no question about it. But I had to interview and study and get the internships,” he said.
Weitz initially followed his family into law, graduating from Cardozo and passing the bar, though he wanted to carve out a course of his own, picking real estate.
They separately joined Tishman, Rutter in 2014 and Weitz a year later. Each worked in various divisions, with Weitz in the analyst rotation program and in portfolio management, and Rutter in acquisitions, development and redevelopment. The pair collaborated closely when Weitz was in leasing and Rutter was working on a project in redevelopment; they decided to partner.
“The partnership was rooted in friendship,” Rutter said. “It was friendship first, and friendship continues to drive our partnership.”
When the pair left Tishman in late 2017, they planned on focusing on New York and branching out to either Austin, Dallas, Houston, Nashville, somewhere in North Carolina or elsewhere in the Sun Belt. As they toured the Sun Belt in early 2018, they were discouraged.
“Either we had missed the boat and a lot of the future growth had either occurred or had already been built for,” Rutter said, “or the barriers to entry for one reason or another weren’t right for the two of us to take advantage of.”
Their last stop: Miami.
For most of their lives, they’d seen the city as a retirement spot (for Weitz, whose grandparent lived there) or a vacation spot (for Rutter), not a prime investment market. Then, an acquaintance, Daniel Lombardi, son of Wynwood pioneer investor David Lombardi, showed them a former ship engine repair facility in the arts district.
“It was really a blank canvas,” Weitz said of the four warehouses that became The Oasis.
Seeing past the ship engines, anchors, cranes and other heavy machinery still at the site at the time, Weitz recognized the vast, uninterrupted floorplates that would draw a specific type of tenant.
“We thought this could be an amazing location for one of these cool, tech-forward, young, culture-rich companies,” he said.
Early on, Google, Microsoft, Spotify and Uber toured. Spotify leased but only after Rutter and Weitz seized on an opening to spend extra time with company representatives after they looked at the building.
By chance, Oak Row’s founders and Spotify’s representatives were on the same flight back to New York. It was diverted to Philadelphia, giving Rutter and Weitz additional time to present their case on the drive up the New Jersey Turnpike.
Spotify was sold on the building and Oak Row’s vision but had reservations. How could the publicly traded music company, which usually leases from top institutional landlords, justify this pair of upstarts — and could Weitz and Rutter succeed in bringing the office space to life?
“The car ride home allowed us to really express all of what our vision was but also give them the confidence that what was on that poster board can and will be delivered,” Rutter said.
Much of their in-transit pitch was explaining that if Oak Row failed to deliver the building then Oak Row itself would fail. Six months later, they got a handshake.
“It’s very rare for Spotify or any tenant to sign a lease with a landlord that owns nothing, that has no operating assets,” Rutter said. “If the Oasis was a success, it would be a launching pad for us.”
All in on Miami
Miami’s spirit of embracing newcomers and Oak Row’s quick scaling in city real estate are intertwined.
“Ninety-eight percent of people welcomed us. Multi-decade [generational firms] by and large were encouraging,” Rutter said.
For a time, Rutter sat on the Miami Wynwood Design Review Committee, while Weitz is a former Wynwood Business Improvement District chairman.
They “hit it off” with the Rubell family, among Miami’s top arts patrons and collectors, purchasing in 2021 the Wynwood site of their former museum and adjacent home in a $26.2 million off-market deal, starting their Wynwood Plaza development site assemblage.
Although the Brickell deal propelled them to the higher echelons of Miami real estate, they are more keen on talking about their Oasis and Wynwood Plaza projects — their first and their hardest.
After buying the Oasis site, the pair split their weeks between New York and Miami, sharing a two-bedroom Wynwood apartment, working on permitting, inspections and contractor hiring on their own since they had no staff. As an adaptive reuse, The Oasis was in some ways harder than new construction, Weitz said.
“You can do all of the review work but you don’t know what you are going to find there,” he said of the 1940s complex, which had additions in the ’80s and ’90s. “You start opening up walls and there’s no structural support for a 20,000-square-foot building.”
“Every day of that project,” Rutter said, “felt like it was not going to come together.”
Their ambitions were “akin to someone starting a car company and saying we want to be better than Ferrari. That is a very New York mindset.”
They spent their time in 2018 and 2019 plotting out Wynwood, studying it block by block, splitting it into quadrants, mapping out the areas that lend themselves best for residential, offices and dining. At an average neighborhood lot size of 0.7 acres, the pair knew they needed more land for Wynwood Plaza, and they assembled 17 more parcels next to the Rubell site, purchasing the entire site for $54 million cash, including the Rubell site purchase.
New York-based L&L Holding, San Francisco-based Shorenstein and Bolivian-American tech businessman Marcelo Claure partnered on Wynwood Plaza, which became a 12-story office building and a 12-story, 509-unit apartment building.
After that, Oak Row’s founders kept riding Miami’s growth, offering places to live and work to the inpouring of new residents and companies.
Last year, they started construction of Edgewater’s 41-story, 399-unit 2600 Biscayne apartment tower and 38-story, 324-unit 2900 Terrace — with financing from their go-to construction lender Bank OZK — and also obtained final approval of the 45-story, 526-unit First&Fifth apartment tower across from Brightline’s MiamiCentral station in downtown.
Their 26-story, 440-unit Venus rental building in North Miami Beach secured zoning approval four years ago, with construction expected to start this year.
Work on the bayfront Brickell condo and hotel project, which will include demolition of an existing office building and apartment building, is to start “as soon as possible,” Rutter and Weitz said.
In control
What Rutter and Weitz lack in experience they make up for with ambition, as well as a networking savvy and a tendency to take control.
Although the pair quickly credits Perry Weitz’s seed funding for their ability to scale so quickly and he remains a partner in Oak Row, neither his photo nor name appear on the firm’s website or marketing materials, while the younger Weitz and Rutter, who run the day-to-day business, are prominently featured.
The pair takes pride in being embedded and living in the submarkets where they’re developing, but they haven’t let go of New York entirely. While Weitz moved to South Florida permanently, buying a $7.8 million six-bedroom Miami Beach home in 2021, Rutter still splits his time between Miami and New York. Oak Row also has a New York office, in addition to its Miami headquarters.
“New York is always on our minds, but the opportunity set is in South Florida,” they said.
Their schedules seem packed, too, with the pair running late for an investors meeting as their interview in late March ran over its hour. Rutter, who is the more talkative of the pair, and more often in the media, took charge, telling their story in detail, with Weitz occasionally chiming in to remind Rutter about anecdotes. Later, they tried to steer the direction of The Real Deal’s reporting, away from some sources and toward others.
Real estate players interviewed for this story pointed to the pair’s “unwavering confidence,” even during the early Covid days before it was known how long the era would last or that it would supercharge Miami. “Smart,” “sharp” and “focused” is how Bernardo Fort-Brescia of Arquitectonica, designer of some of Oak Row’s projects, described Rutter and Weitz.
Miami Beach-based Mariposa Real Estate, a family office for the Franklin family, whose patriarch, Sir Martin Franklin, has ventures in the consumer goods, chemicals, frozen foods and other industries, is a partner in the Brickell site and 2900 Terrace, according to Franklin’s son Sam Franklin.
Mariposa considered Rutter and Weitz’s “youth and lack of breadth of experience, not lack of experience,” but wasn’t scared off, instead recognizing their drive, said the younger Franklin, an occasional padel partner of Rutter and Weitz’s.
“We are very much in lockstep with the way we live our lives,” Franklin said, “very focused on our families and finding a way to have as much fun as we can in the margins.”
Alex Karakhanian, a partner in the Edgewater towers, recalled Rutter and Weitz shared their high aspirations with him in their early days in Miami.
It was “akin to someone starting a car company and saying we want to be better than Ferrari. To just come out and say we want to be bigger and better than that, I think that is a very New York mindset,” Karakhanian said. “It’s not a bad thing. They knew they wanted to scale.”
To longtime Miamians, a lot of talk is nothing new as people here don’t shy from boasting or showing flashy renderings of planned projects, only to eventually go silent and never finish buildings they hyped up.
Oak Row is an exception, sources agreed. Rutter and Weitz talk big, but their actions and completions match.
“Everybody wants to build a building and stand on top of it. I can’t say many have,” Arellano, the Wynwood broker, said. “They really have escape velocity.”
Shifting tides
South Florida, despite its reputation as a real estate haven and magnet for residents and companies, especially during the recent blue-to-red-states flight, isn’t insulated from pullbacks.
After years of hefty multifamily deliveries, developers finished a record 18,600 units in 2024, or 20 percent more than those leased for that year, CoStar Group data show. Even though developers cite a drop in construction starts, saying it will alleviate pressure and demand will catch up, they still completed another 12,718 units last year, about 7 percent more than leased.
As a result, lease-ups slowed, regional average asking rents dropped and concessions increased.
The office market’s success also isn’t a given. Even as the likes of Palantir Technologies move their headquarters here, data has shown they tend to take small to midsize offices.
Oak Row said its record speaks for itself, pointing to the leasing of Wynwood Plaza, with the apartment and office buildings each about 60 percent leased. Retailers have also been leasing across projects, with Equinox signing up to open at 2600 Biscayne and Sanguich joining a flurry of deals at Wynwood Plaza.
Rutter said Oak Row is offering concessions for Wynwood Plaza apartments. “But our velocity is very strong,” he said. Leasing started in August and is averaging about 35 deals per month, more than the typical underwriting of 25 units, at some of the highest rents (studios start at about $2,485 and two-bedrooms reach $4,590) in Wynwood. “We couldn’t possibly sign 509 leases in six months. That’s just not the way the world works.”
They expect no trouble leasing their apartments on tap, saying estimates for regional completions from 2027-32 are much lower than historical averages, and that they are opportunistically building for an expected supply-demand imbalance.
The Wynwood Plaza office building made a splash, signing Amazon for about 76,000 square feet. A private equity firm signed up for the penthouse at $105 per square foot, gross, surpassing Oak Row’s underwriting of $50 a foot, Rutter added.
OKO Group also has leased. Some other tenants are tied to the development team, including Perry Weitz’s law firm, Weitz & Luxenberg, and Claure’s firm Claure Group.
In the early days of Oak Row, Rutter and Weitz hammered out its core principles, targeting the needs of the growing city: top office space for the incoming companies and well-managed apartment buildings.
They were early, and basically correct, creating a feedback loop for their ambition and continued high aspirations.
During the interview at their office, Rutter used the phrase “the best” 14 times to describe Oak Row’s team, partners, projects and future development plans.
Any workforce housing project in North Miami Beach has to be “the best” such development the city has ever had; Wynwood Plaza is “the best” class AAA mixed-use project in the area; and Oak Row has “the best” team of any developer in the state, he said.
As for the branded condo boom in Miami? As analysts are starting to sweat it, saying projects will compete for the same buyers, Rutter and Weitz agree some projects will flop because they’re bad projects — but there’s no competition for their Brickell development. Theirs, they say, will be a tier of its own: a hospitality-branded luxury condo with a hotel on the water.
“If we are building a luxury-branded hotel and condominium in Brickell on the waterfront, it needs to be the best condo and hotel project that Brickell has seen. It needs to be on the best site,” Rutter said. “It goes back to why we bought a site. Because it’s the best site, with the best brand to deliver the best project.”
