Apeiron at the Jockey Club is planning to launch presales of condos next year, after winning a key government zoning approval, The Real Deal has learned.
The Biscayne Shores Community Council voted unanimously on Wednesday to approve the planned hotel and residential development on the property of the Jockey Club at 11111 Biscayne Boulevard near North Miami.
In 2015, Apeiron’s development team filed plans for an ultra-modern project that would be built on the Jockey Club’s 13 acres of common grounds. The team, headed by Muayad “Mo” Abbas, Horst Schulze and Michael Bedner, purchased the land for $3.25 million in 2014 and secured a $21 million loan to fund planning costs in December 2015.
The developers’ plans include 120 “serviced” condos ranging from 1,500 square feet to more than 4,500 square feet; a 90-key boutique hotel; a 5-acre health and wellness facility; a new 50-slip, deep-water yacht marina for vessels ranging from 40 feet to over 100 feet; tennis courts and pools. Other amenities for the complex include a new dog park, children’s playground, bayfront promenade, improved landscaping and upgraded security.
The project was tangled in litigation with residents of the Jockey Club until late May, when a judge issued a final order following a trial. The judge’s ruling allowed the developers the right to develop the project and to take over maintenance of the property, which was previously handled by a master association made up of the three existing Jockey Club buildings, built between 1971 and 1982.
Residents of the condo complex filed suit against the developers in March 2016. The lawsuit was grounded in a pair of agreements that were made between the Jockey Club’s original developer and the condo associations of the first two buildings. The first agreement, made in 1977, was between the association of Building II and Jockey Club, Inc. According to the suit, the association agreed to stand aside while the developer built a third tower. In exchange, the residents requested that no further residential construction be made in the complex.
The second agreement, made in 1995, was between the developer and the associations of all three buildings. It essentially gave the buildings easement rights over the complex’s common areas, including its pools and tennis courts, for 99 years. The suit alleged Apeiron, as successor to the Jockey Club’s original developer, would break both of those agreements if it build its project.
The developers are in the permitting process for the hotel and condos, and are also pursuing county permits to build the deep-water marina, a spokesperson for the project said.
Presales are expected to launch in the second quarter of 2018, he said.