Dacra, Raycliff Land $125M Loan for Design District Office Tower
The loan follows a $31.1M city construction permit pulled a week earlier, tying the financing directly to a project now cleared to break ground.
Craig Robins’ Dacra and New York-based Raycliff Capital closed a $125 million construction loan for an eight-story office and retail building at 95 NE 40th Street in the Design District, with Credit Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank arranging the financing on behalf of a group of lenders, The Real Deal and Commercial Observer reported.
Why it matters
The loan lands six days after the city of Miami issued a $31.1 million construction permit for the same address, converting a design unveiling into a financed, permitted project in under two months. It is also a bet that South Florida still wants ground-up office product in a submarket built almost entirely on retail and residential, at a moment when many developers nationally are steering capital away from new office starts. Dacra and its partners are betting the Design District’s retail draw, anchored by Chanel and Hermes storefronts nearby, can carry office rents that a standalone site could not.
The numbers
The building, named Sweetbird North, rises eight stories on a roughly 17,000-square-foot site next to the Museum Garage, with more than 92,000 square feet of office space on floors three through eight and 22,500 square feet of ground-floor retail below it, according to Commercial Observer. Norway-based architecture firm Snohetta designed the project, which Kast Construction is building. Construction started this month and is targeted to finish in early 2028. Dacra operates the site through Miami Design District Associates, the joint venture that has developed the 18-block district alongside L Catterton Real Estate and Brookfield Properties; Raycliff Capital is sponsoring this project as an additional investment partner.
What’s next
With financing closed and the permit in hand, the next milestone is vertical construction reaching the office floors, expected to be visible from NE 2nd Avenue within the next several months. Dacra and its partners are separately developing a 25-story condo tower and a Fouquet’s-branded hotel elsewhere in the district, meaning Sweetbird North is one piece of a financing wave the ownership group will need to keep clearing through 2028.