MIAMI—Hotel Urbano at Brickell, a 65-key boutique hotel located on historic Brickell Avenue in Downtown Miami, has a new owner. Baywood Hotels purchased the hotel free and clear of debt behalf from an affiliate of Carlyle Group and Rodblu Investment Fund 1 and will assume property management. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

HFF director Max Comess, senior managing director Daniel C. Peek and associate directors Cyrus Vazifdar and Scott Wadler represented the seller. The hotel is located at 2500 Brickell Avenue and occupies a large parcel with frontage on both Brickell and South Miami Avenues in an area commonly known as “Millionaires' Row.”

“The Hotel Urbano transaction provides further evidence to the evolution of Miami as a true gateway market,” says Peek. “The dramatic attraction of hotel investors to the area that began on South Beach has spread to downtown, the Brickell corridor, Coral Gables and the entire metropolitan area.”

Completed in 1961 and redeveloped in 2010, the boutique hotel features rotating art exhibits from up-and-coming Miami artists, three meeting spaces spanning 1,650 square feet, the Bistro Urbano restaurant and bar, an outdoor resort pool surrounded by cabanas equipped with flat-screen televisions, fitness center, and business center.  The hotel was offered with valuable development rights allowing for a 64-room—12,699 square feet—expansion on the site.

“The opportunity to acquire Hotel Urbano and its valuable urban development rights was aggressively pursued by investors from the US, Latin America and Asia,” says Comess. “The high physical quality of this hotel combined with a flexible expansion opportunity appealed to Baywood, who has emerged as one of the most active hotel developers in Miami today.”