OKO Group pays $48M to buy out Brickell area condo owners

The Real Deal
20 October 2015
By Ina Cordle

175 Southeast 25th Road in Miami

A unit of OKO Group has paid nearly $48 million to buy out all the condominium unit owners in a building at the south end of Brickell, with plans to create a luxury condo tower, CBRE announced.

Miami Waterfront Ventures, a division of the OKO Group, acquired all the condominium units at the 25 Bay Tower Condo, at 175 Southeast 25th Road. The 11-story building sits on nearly one acre on Biscayne Bay, CBRE said.

BridgeInvest told The Real Deal that it financed $29.5 million of the purchase, through its subsidiary BI II. CBRE’s Gerard Yetming and Calum Weaver, along with Cary Cohen of Flagler Real Estate Services LLC, negotiated with individual owners on behalf of the buyer to make the bulk acquisition.

“We were able to get every owner to agree to sell which is very nearly impossible to do,” Yetming, a CBRE senior vice president, said in a statement. “But the scarcity of waterfront product in Brickell, the incredible views from the site, and the fact that this building has much lower density than what is allowable, made this an excellent prospect for repositioning as a luxury project and worth the investment of time and energy.”

Miami-Dade property records show the Brickell area building was built in 1971 and has more than 60 condo units.

The OKO Group is planning to build a 48-story luxury condominium on the property, which has 150 feet of waterfront, according to a release. The deal marks OKO Group’s third acquisition in Miami. The firm has also bought 2.8 acres of waterfront land between 26th Street and 26th Terrace in Miami’s Edgewater neighborhood.

Why this was so successful?
There were only 60 units sitting on an acre of prime real estate. Each owner got a good price for a forty-four year old building that probably required a lot of repairs. —editor

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