Miami Center Building Acquired by Sumitomo Corporation of America

Sumitomo Corporation of America (SCOA) recently closed on the purchase of Miami Center building, at 201 South Biscayne Boulevard, in the Central Business district of Miami, Florida. The building, with spectacular views of Biscayne Bay and the city skyline has immediate access to Bayside Marketplace shopping & restaurant complex and the adjoining Inter-Continental Hotel Miami. Negotiations with the selling group, Crescent Real Estate Equities Limited Partnership and institutional investors advised by J.P. Morgan Asset Management - Global Real Assets, concluded on September 30, 2008 with a purchase price of $260 million.

Robert Obringer, general manager of SCOA's Real Estate Unit, sees solid value in this latest acquisition. "We are excited to add Miami Center to our portfolio of commercial properties here in the U.S.," explains Mr. Obringer.

"As part of our constant management of assets, we are always looking for opportunities that will maximize return on investment, and this property offers a strong upside potential for steady cash flow growth and long-term value appreciation," adds Mr. Obringer. The building is 96% leased to multiple tenants, including major tenant, Citi Group.

Pangs of Seller’s Remorse in Miami Market

MIAMI — For sale: one newly constructed three-bedroom, four-bathroom home near the University of Miami, with South African wood in the kitchen, marble from India, Egypt and Spain, and a $4,500 top-of-the-line garage door.

Listing price two years ago: $979,000. Listing price now: $599,000.

“I always figured the market trend wouldn’t catch me,” said Rafael Diaz, the owner and builder. He turned down $770,000 more than a year ago, he said, and has come to accept that he will never get the $700,000 he said he needed to break even. “By the end of the year,” he said, “I might just turn it over to the bank.”

Homeowners are struggling nationwide. But here in South Florida, the reversal of fortune has been especially severe, scrambling the psychology of a community that has historically treated real estate as a game of how-rich-can-you-get.

Overdeveloped and still building, this remains a place where conversations about the market are sugared with a rush of dreams and speculation. Now, though, people start with “if only I had sold when,” rather than “I should have bought.”

Miami Beach real estate

William Lucien ''Billy'' Keen Jr., who launched the popular Southern-themed restaurant Lulu's on South Beach at the dawn of the area's rebirth -- a fun-loving party planner who threw spectacular Halloween benefits, sold real estate and believed that banana pudding could cure any bad mood -- has died at 51.

His youngest sister, Renee Barrera, said Keen succumbed to bladder cancer at South Miami Hospital on June 26 after ''a long, hard fight'' for seven years.

Keen and business partner Gabi Hakman opened Lulu's at 1053 Washington Ave., in 1990. A Miami Herald item said it would offer 'blues, barbecue and Elvis . . . three things food and rock 'n' roll fans can look forward to . . . Starters like corn and okra fritters or smoked catfish salad will go for $3 to $4.''

$1.7B Everglades Land Deal in Works

The United States Sugar Corp. is selling 187,000 acres to Florida for $1.75 billion, Governor Charlie Crist announced yesterday. The South Florida water management district’s proposal aims to restore the agricultural land in order to help preserve the Everglades.

The proposal covers almost 300 square miles across four South Florida counties, and would include all of U.S. Sugars property south of Lake Okeechobee, including its cane fields, mill and railroad line. The two sides had been ironing out the logistics of the deal since Crist unexpectedly proposed to purchase U.S. Sugar Corp. at a meeting this past November.

“The deal wasn’t because of economic issues and it wasn’t because of environmental pressure,” said Robert Coker, the vice president of U.S. Sugar Corp. “We’ve been consistently building new factories, plants and other facilities and we’ve been dealing with environmental pressure since the company started.”