Trial attorney and University of Miami booster John Ruiz sold one of his Gables Estates properties for a discounted $30 million, or $15 million off the original asking price.
Records show Ruiz’s 530 Arvida Holdings LLC sold the eight-bedroom, 13,200-square-foot waterfront mansion at 530 Arvida Parkway to JPB Property Holdings, a Delaware entity. The buyer is a billionaire from within Gables Estates, according to sources who declined to name them.
The 1-acre Neoclassical-style estate hit the market in March for $45 million, which means it sold at a 67 percent discount. It most recently was asking $39.5 million. Price cuts, or “improvements,” as many brokers describe them, are becoming more common amid the market slowdown.
Diana Gutierrez with Mocca Realty represented the seller, while Magnus Jennemyr with Engel & Völkers brought the buyer. Gutierrez did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and Jennemyr declined to comment on the buyer.
Despite the discount, Ruiz sold the mansion for more than he paid. He acquired the home from aviation parts company owner Randy Fiorenza and his wife, Sandra, in September 2021 for $25 million.
The property was developed in 2012 and includes 200 feet on the water, a 140-foot dock, a 600-bottle wine cellar, a two-bedroom staff quarters, chef’s kitchen and more than 4,000 square feet of covered terraces, according to the listing. It was designed by Raymond Pacheco.
Jennemyr said that the home sold with tenants in place who are expected to move out by mid-year. He said he showed the buyer homes across South Florida, but ended up negotiating with the seller of the Gables Estates mansion until reaching the final sale price.
Ruiz owns Coral Gables-based MSP Recovery and MSP Recovery Law Firm, which focus on recovering Medicare and Medicaid health care payments that should have been covered by other parties. MSP Recovery merged with Lionheart Acquisition Corp., a special purpose acquisition company owned by developer Ophir Sternberg, in 2021 and later completed a reverse merger.
Ruiz has been in the news over the past year for his unsolicited proposal to build a stadium for the University of Miami Hurricanes football team at Miami-Dade County’s Tropical Park. The proposal has garnered significant opposition from critics who are opposed to the county selling park land.
In October, Ruiz paid $22 million for the waterfront home at 550 Arvida Parkway, which is next door to 530 Arvida Parkway. A year earlier, he sold the teardown at 80 Leucadendra Drive, also in Gables Estates, for $13.8 million.
And three years ago, Ruiz paid $49 million — at the time the second-highest single-family home sale in Miami-Dade County — for what was then Leon Medical Centers founder Benjamin Leon Jr.’s tropical resort-style mansion at 620 and 630 Arvida Parkway. (Leon also sold 550 Arvida Parkway to Ruiz.)