There is renewed interest in Greater Downtown Miami’s ICON Brickell condominium project with a bulk buyer picking up a second set of 15 units within the space of 4 months. Miami Icon Hotel Room LLC picked up the first 15 units in September 2010 at $337 per square foot and the second set of 15 units in December 2010 at $418 per square foot. This gives the buyer a combined salable space of 26,000 square feet acquired for $9.5 million.
This immense project of more than 1,800 units ran into trouble when the real estate market crashed in 2006. Greater Downtown Miami was particularly badly hit because it was home to 22,250 newly constructed units located in a stretch of only 60 blocks.
The developers of the ICON Brickell project were compelled to deed over 870 units to a HSBC Bank USA led consortium of lenders under a newly created ownership entity called ICON Brickell LLC.
These bulk purchases indicate that the ICON Brickell project is finally set to get going. In fact, the rising prices ensured that the bank consortium booked a good profit of 14 percent while doing the last bulk deal since the condos were acquired for $368 per square foot.
