Shoma Group is abandoning plans to redevelop a shuttered car dealership, selling the 2.5-acre site for $35 million to a group that includes Richard LeFrak’s eponymous firm.
An entity managed by Arnaud Karsenti, principal of Coconut Grove-based 13th Floor Investments, acquired the property at 3650 Bird Road, records and real estate database Vizzda show. 13th Floor partnered with New York-based LeFrak Organization and Coconut Grove-based Related Group, led by Jorge, Jon Paul and Nicholas Pérez, to purchase the site, Karsenti said in an emailed statement.
The former dealership is near Link at Douglas, a mixed-use project entering its second phase of construction that 13th Floor is co-developing with Miami-based Adler Group. The four-tower development will ultimately have 1,603 apartments, 280,000 square feet of office, and 68,000 square feet of retail.
Karsenti did not comment regarding the joint venture’s plan for the former dealership, but the deal marks LeFrak’s first major South Florida acquisition since the firm partnered with Aventura-based Turnberry to acquire a 183-acre site in North Miami in 2015. LeFrak and Turnberry developed the property into SoLé Mia, a master planned community with condos, apartment towers and retail.
Shoma, led by husband and wife Masoud and Stephanie Shojaee, did not respond to requests for comment about selling the dealership site for $1 million above its purchase price three years ago. In 2022, a Shoma affiliate paid $34 million for the property and obtained a $38.8 million loan secured by the former dealership, which was built in 1952.
Shoma paid off the loan on the same day the firm sold the property to 13th Floor, LeFrak and Related, records show. The site is approved for a pair of 40-story high-rises with 748 apartments and 20,000 square feet of retail, Vizzda states.
Recently, Shoma has experienced some turbulence. In January, the firm resolved a foreclosure lawsuit in less than a month, brought by City National Bank. The bank quickly dismissed the complaint and reinstated three loans totaling $14.1 million that City National had alleged Shoma affiliates had defaulted on, including a mortgage secured by a Coral Gables condo where the Shojaees live.
Another lender, an affiliate of Delaware entity Right Meow Capital, dismissed a December foreclosure lawsuit against a Shoma entity and the Shojaees two weeks after filing the complaint. The Right Meow Capital affiliate had alleged Shoma and its top executives failed to repay a $10.5 million loan secured by the retail component of Shoma Village, a mixed-use project with 304 apartments in Hialeah that the Shojaees’ firm completed three years ago.