The Paris Theater on Washington Avenue in South Beach is for sale for $23 million, as the faded street sits perched at the cusp of redevelopment.
Marcus & Millichap has the listing for 25,589-square-foot entertainment space at 550 Washington Avenue in Miami Beach. Scott C. Sandelin, a vice president investments, and Alejandro D’Alba, an associate, both in Marcus & Millichap’s Miami office, are representing the seller, a Miami Beach-based limited liability company.
The seller is Big Time Productions, which paid $975,000 for the property in 1992, according to Miami-Dade property records. The production firm, which bases its headquarters at the Paris studios, also owns the Ice Palace Film Studios, along with other venues.
With a capacity of 1,200 patrons, the Paris space can be used for any type of event, including theatrical productions, launch parties and dances. One of the unique features of the Paris Theater is its glass roof, according to a release about the listing.
“The red-hot hotel business on Miami Beach gives rise to the need for large entertainment spaces that can hold more than 1,000 guests at a time,” D’Alba said in a statement. “The Paris Theater is one of only a handful of large structures that allows an investor the flexibility to operate the property in its current form, or completely repurpose the space for a different use.”
Washington Avenue is experiencing a new wave of redevelopment, as the city considers new measures that are designed to increase hotel space and retail and dining opportunities on the street, which lags far behind Lincoln Road and Ocean Drive in attracting first tier retail, dining and hotel venues.
At a Miami Beach City Commission earlier this week, commissioners said they welcomed plans that would allow height limits to be increased to 55 feet from the current 50 foot limit for most buildings, and higher for larger buildings, reducing or in some cases eliminating parking requirements for hotels and businesses and adding parklets — parking spaces converted to temporary patios for outdoor dining.
The proposals come out of the Mayor’s Blue Ribbon Panel for Washington Avenue, chaired by former commissioner Saul Gross, president of Streamline Properties, and a longtime business owner on Washington Avenue.
To increase foot traffic during the day, the proposed ordinance calls for new nightclubs with a maximum of 25 feet of frontage on Washington Avenue, to provide some kind of active use during the day.
And to encourage hotel investment, height limits for buildings with more than 200 feet of frontage will be increased from the current 50 feet to 75 feet with a 35–foot setback from the street. Gross says the proposal applies only to larger buildings that have open space on the sides of their buildings, and it is needed for hotels, which require 100 to 115 rooms to be economically viable. Parking requirements for new hotels will be waived until 2020, and current parking space requirements for offices will be significantly reduced.
“The Paris Theater is located directly west of the proposed Washington Avenue development site that has been the catalyst for the Washington Avenue resurgence,” Sandelin said in a statement. “The Washington Avenue site is a mixed-use project with hotel, condo, office and retail components.” — Ina Cordle