Victorian Plaza Undergoing $45M Sale, Conversion

MIAMI-Karlton Collins LLC, a Florida limited liability company, has purchased The Victorian Plaza in Miami Beach for $22.4 million and is spending about the same amount of money to convert it back to residential use–this time selling the units as condominiums. The sellers were Victor Posner Trust No. 6, the leaseholder, and Security Management Corp., the fee holder.

The property, completed in 1969, originally consisted of a 14-story building with 249 apartments on 1.75 acres of land with 225 ft of Atlantic Ocean frontage. In the early ’80s, however, Posner, who passed away about a year ago, converted the building to office space for his many companies.

The property, at 6917 Collins Ave., has been vacant for approximately a year.

Now the buyer plans to convert the building to about 250 condominiums that will sell in the $200,000 to $250,000 range, Daniel Rotenberg, a partner in Karlton Properties, tells GlobeSt.com. The other partners in the firm are Gavriel Naim and Fredric Karlton.

“We’re completely redoing the building,” Rotenberg says. The outside was just redone, and the windows were just replaced. The acquisition and conversion costs will total about $45 million, he says.

The sale of the property was supposed to close in August, Rotenberg says, but a number of legal issues delayed the closing about five months. He adds that he is “happy to have the building.”"Ultimately, the timing worked out very well for us,” he notes, as a number of buildings are being renovated and developed in the area. The historical property was designed by famous architect Morris Lapidus.

Bard Brenner of Sam Brenner Inc. in Miami represented the buyer, and Brenda Nestor of Brenda Nestor and Associates in Hallandale, FL, represented the seller in the transaction.