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Happy Saturday Highest & Best! Here’s a rundown of the South Florida real estate week that was:

💸 Miami Worldcenter developers seek grand exit for their new mall

🫣 Relief for Florida’s oldest condos

⛔ A North Miami Beach foreclosure looms

💰A trio of mega construction loans

🪙 Turning crypto into condos

Also: Advertise with us! For inquiries, connect with me at [email protected].

Let’s get to it!

Miami Worldcenter Mall Opens with a Bang—and a For Sale Sign

It’s a grand opening, with a possibly grander exit.

Developers of Miami Worldcenter are listing a brand-new, fully leased retail complex for over $300 million—the same week they lit up downtown with fireworks, a laser show, a confetti storm, and a performance by Flo Rida to celebrate its debut. 

The 273,000-square-foot open-air mall—part of a $6 billion, urban redevelopment spanning 27 Miami blocks — includes high-profile tenants like Apple, Lucky Strike, Lucid Motors, and the Museum of Ice Cream (where visitors can swim in a pool of sprinkles).

The mall held a sold-out grand opening party Thursday night. But behind the scenes, the development team (a joint venture led by Art Falcone, Nitin Motwani, and CIM Group) has quietly tapped brokerage Newmark to bring the property to market, according to the Real Deal.

The timing may prove strategic: Retail vacancies in Miami-Dade remain below 3%, and asking rents jumped 5.8% year-over-year in the first quarter, according to Colliers. (And that’s while Miami office leasing is slowing and corporate relocations to the city taper off).

Other investors are also cashing out of their Miami retail holdings. Earlier this month, Robert Rivani’s Black Lion Investment Group sold its last two retail properties in Miami’s Brickell neighborhood. The commercial condo units (leased to a Japanese steakhouse and a Mexican eatery) fetched a combined $38.2 million, nearly $15 million more than what Black Lion paid for them just a few years ago.

⏪ Catch up on recent Highest & Best issues:

• Level Up, Lauderdale!, May 10, 2025

• Pitches, Pit Stops & Penthouses, May 3, 2025

• Leasing & Leo, April 13, 2025

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Old Florida Condos Catch a Break

Owners of older Florida condos may soon get relief from looming special assessments.

Gov. Ron DeSantis said this week he plans to sign a bill that would ease key requirements of Florida’s post-Surfside condo safety law—offering a reprieve to thousands of residents facing costly repairs, soaring fees, and the risk of being priced out of their homes.

It’s a temporary pressure valve for what’s become a slow-motion crisis in Florida’s condo market.

After the tragic 2021 collapse of Champlain Towers South in Surfside, which killed 98 people, Florida passed the “Building Safety Act,” requiring all condo buildings 30 years and older to complete structural integrity studies by the end of 2024. Boards could no longer delay critical repairs.

The costs of those repairs were starting to hit this year, triggering massive assessments that threatened condo values and put pressure on owners, especially those on fixed incomes.

When signed, the revised law taking effect July 1 would give condo boards more time to complete inspections and build reserves. It allows a two-year pause on reserve contributions and lets associations use loans or credit lines to meet funding requirements.

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North Miami Beach Rental Site Faces Foreclosure

A North Miami Beach development site where 700 rental units were planned could be headed for foreclosure instead.

The developers behind the 1.8-acre site (at 1959 and 1999 N.E. 164th St) defaulted on a $13.6 million loan issued in 2022 with a 10% interest rate, according to property intel firm Vizzda.

Their lender—an entity that goes by the name  “LC 4.7 VTX LLC”—filed suit this month, alleging the borrowers failed to repay the loan when it matured in March and didn’t bother to negotiate an extension, according to court filings. 

Now, the lender is seeking to foreclose on a property that’s currently home to little more than two aging retail buildings totaling under 20,000 square feet.

The site sold for $14.2 million in 2022, with far grander ambitions: twin high-rise towers at 27 stories each, with studios and one-bedrooms, a splash of office space, retail, and nearly 1,000 parking spots

For now, though, the only thing going vertical is the legal bill.

Cranes Incoming: Trio of Florida Projects Snag Nine-Figure Loans

It was a solid week to be a South Florida residential developer in need of a nine-figure construction loan. Three major projects across the region just locked down some hefty financing:

💰Oasis Hallandale, a 10-acre resort-like condo project in Hallandale Beach, secured enough backing to give its under-construction tower a sibling.

Developer Giuseppe Iadisernia closed on a $112 million construction loan from New York-based S3 Capital to build the project’s East Tower: a 250-unit luxury condo building that will rise next to the already-topped-off West Tower. The new building will offer units ranging from 900 to 4,750 square feet, priced between $750,000 and $5.02 million, according to a press release. The West Tower is expected to be complete later this year, while the East Tower is scheduled for a 2027 delivery.

💰The plan for Fort Lauderdale’s tallest building just got the cash to make it a reality.

Related Group locked in a towering $231 million construction loan to bring Andare Residences to life at 521 East Las Olas Boulevard. When it’s done, the 46-story high-rise with rippling, wave-like balconies will be Fort Lauderdale’s tallest building, and another addition to the city’s growing list of luxury condo offerings.

Completion of the building, which broke ground this year, is slated for 2027.

Buyers have already claimed half of the 163 condos in the planned tower, where units start at $2 million and the penthouse hits $16 million.

The financing came from Athene Annuity and Life Company, part of Apollo Global, which took over a $14.8 million loan to Related in 2023—and issued the group another $216 million, per the Real Deal.

💰 Goldman Sachs just handed over an $111.25 million construction loan to Empira Group for their latest venture, the Perrin, a 26-story residential tower poised to rise in Miami's Brickell neighborhood.

The tower will bring 310 apartments—mostly studios and one-bedrooms in a building also promising a Zen garden and a tea room—into a rental market that’s taking on a hefty supply of new rentals.

More than 20,000 new apartments have been added to South Florida’s rental market in the year through April, according to commercial real estate firm Berkadia. But rents held steady in that time period, averaging $2,519 per month.

Construction on the Perrin will likely begin this summer, with completion expected in 2027.

 🪙 ➡ 🏢 Turning Coins Into Condos

One of Miami’s most prolific condo developers is now accepting cryptocurrency for deposits, making it easier for buyers to turn coins into contracts.

Property Markets Group partnered with payment firm Shift4 ($FOUR ( ▲ 1.77% ) ) to enable crypto transactions across all of its Florida condo projects, including Waldorf Astoria Residences in Miami and St. Petersburg and One Twenty Brickell Residences (the condo where buyers get their own deeded office).

Buyers can put down deposits using their digital wallets, while PMG still gets paid in  U.S. dollars—no wild Bitcoin swings on the balance sheet.

PMG says it’s the first developer to make crypto payments part of its standard sales process. Buyers fill out a short addendum, verify their identity through Shift4, and receive a personalized payment link.

“Our goal is to make real estate more accessible, secure, and future-forward for a new generation of investors,” the firm said in a press release.

Or at least for those with enough crypto to cover a deposit.

That’s it for today!

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