Miami Developer Ugo Colombo Joins Brickell Land Rush With $21M Purchase

Downtown Development Holdings LLC, managed by Ugo Colombo’s CMC Group Inc., purchased the 1001 S. Miami Ave. property Friday for nearly $434 per square foot of land, according to Miami-Dade County records. The Baru Urbano restaurant operates on the site.
Colombo’s company name signals the eventual development of the 1.11-acre property at 1001 S. Miami Ave. It obtained a $12.6 million loan from SunTrust Bank for the acquisition.
Brickell Flatiron LLC is the seller. The Miami company is managed by developer Mallory Kauderer.
“The timing was right” to sell the property to Colombo’s group, Kauderer said Tuesday.
The company previously planned to build a high-rise tower with more than 300 condominiums, 20,000 square feet of retail space and nine parking levels, he said. Kauderer joined Brickell Flatiron as a manager in 2010, five years after the company began assembling the site.
Kauderer said he’s unsure of Colombo’s future development plans.
Developers have aggressively land-banked in Miami’s financial district this year. With raw land at a premium in Brickell, builders are finding unconventional ways to secure prime sites in the latest development cycle.
Some, like Colombo’s company, acquire properties with existing buildings that could later be razed to make way for high-rise construction.
Others, like Coral Gables-based Watson Investigations LLC, have purchased Brickell-area land through court proceedings. Watson in July paid $21.5 million for a 0.78-acre site across from the Brickell CityCentre project in the bankruptcy case of companies managed by Miami developer Renzo Renzi.
 
Source:  DBR