An investor group led by real estate broker Vivian Dimond will now market the 247 planned units at H3 Hollywood development as rental apartments instead of condos, as the original developer had planned, The Real Deal has learned.
“We are not going to be a condo, at least not under my ownership,” Dimond said. “It’s going to be rental apartments.”
She also said that her investor group settled with most of the depositors who had put money down for condos at H3, a restarted construction-stage project at 2165 Van Buren Street, just west of downtown Hollywood.
“We reached agreement with 141 out of 154,” Dimond said. “By the time we’re finished, it’s going to cost about $5 million … We could have foreclosed them. I decided I don’t want to do that. I would have spent $5 million on lawyers.”
Her investor group resumed construction of H3 this year after the original developer, Hollywood Station Investments, stopped paying subcontractors for working on the planned 15-story building and construction came to a halt. Construction originally had been expected to be completed by December 2016 or January 2017.
In April of this year, LB Construction of South Florida, the general contractor of H3 Hollywood, submitted the winning bid for the project’s assets at a foreclosure auction.
LB Construction subsequently transferred ownership of the H3 property to Dimond’s investor group as part of a confidential settlement she negotiated with the general contractor. The deal allowed LB Construction to pay millions of dollars owed to about three dozen subcontractors that worked on the H3 project.
Brown Harris Stevens this year acquired Dimond’s residential real estate brokerage Avatar Real Estate Services, which has offices in Coconut Grove and South Miami and focuses on the luxury market. Avatar, now be called Brown Harris Stevens Avatar, and will continue to be led by Dimond, who founded the firm in 2002.