Kushner Buys Distressed Surfside Site from Boymelgreen

Kushner Companies paid $40 million for a distressed development site in Surfside, sources told The Real Deal.

New York-based Kushner worked with the seller, Shaya Boymelgreen, and the lender, Fuse Group, to assume the debt and buy the property at 9300 Collins Avenue. The deal closed on Tuesday afternoon, the sources said.

Kushner, led by Charles Kushner, his daughter Nicole Kushner Meyer and Laurent Morali, plans a luxury rental development. The vacant property is zoned for about 100 units with a maximum building height of about three stories. Kushner could not immediately be reached for comment.

Boymelgreen’s Eden Surfside LLC sold the 2.9-acre site, which is on the west side of Collins Avenue. The non-waterfront property faces the Fendi Château Residences condominium.

New York broker Moshe Majeski brought the deal to Kushner, according to a source. It will mark the first new development for the firm in Surfside. Other planned new developments in the oceanfront town include Damac Properties’ proposed luxury condo building on the Champlain Towers South collapse property, and Multiplan Real Estate Asset Management’s luxury condo building near the Kushner site, at 9309 and 9317 Collins Avenue.

Boymelgreen assembled the Surfside site between 2013 and 2015 for $26.5 million. Originally, he planned a luxury townhouse development, but plans changed to a three-story, 200-key hotel, which was never built. Last year, Boymelgreen closed on a $30 million loan for the then-planned hotel from Eyal Peretz’ Fuse Group.

Peretz denied the deal was distressed, but acknowledged that the borrower “needed to take care of certain things, and the loan was close to maturity.” The loan matured about a month and a half ago, he said. Michael Gallinar of Adams Gallinar represented Fuse Group.

Peretz said he was “very happy” to have worked out a deal with Kushner.

Kushner has a handful of large-scale projects with partners scattered across South Florida. In May, Kushner and the Miculitzki family’s Block Capital Group secured a $91 million refinancing of their recently completed Wynwood apartment, office and retail buildings.

Kushner, Immocorp and Faith Group are also working on other projects in Wynwood and Miami Gardens. And in Edgewater, Kushner and PTM Partners plan a 1,300-unit, two-tower apartment development.

Boymelgreen made his name in New York City real estate, and partnered with diamond billionaire Lev Leviev in the early 2000s. But he ran into legal trouble amid the Great Recession, and in 2016, the New York Attorney General imposed a two-year ban on Boymelgreen in the offer and sale of securities, including condos.
In South Florida, Boymelgreen and his family also plan an eight-story, 50-unit luxury condo development called 42 Pine. They closed on a $35.5 million construction loan from BridgeCity Capital for the project in June of last year.