The Blackstone Group just paid $117 million for the Portofino at Biscayne, a sprawling apartment complex in North Miami.
Records show BRE Portofino MF Property Owner LLC, an affiliate of Blackstone, bought the 871-unit, 792,499-square-foot development, built in 1974. The deal breaks down to about $135,000 per apartment.
Brooklyn-based Stellar Management, led by developer, investor and landlord Larry Gluck, sold the 23-acre complex at 14000 Biscayne Boulevard. Gluck co-founded Stellar with New York developer Steve Witkoff, but they went their separate ways when the market collapsed in the late 1990s.
Stellar purchased the North Miami property in 2002 for $48.13 million, then renovated the apartments in 2003. Units range from 510-square-foot studios to 1,100-square-foot two-bedrooms and include balconies, according to Portofino’s website.
Blackstone financed the deal with a nearly $90 million mortgage from Wells Fargo.
Since January, more than $4 billion worth of multifamily properties traded hands in South Florida alone, with the majority of deals occurring in suburban neighborhoods of Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach and Miami.
Blackstone was among the top commercial buyers in Miami-Dade last year. Earlier this week, sources told Bloomberg the private equity firm plans to go public with Invitation Homes, the largest single-family rental company in the country.