Knighthead Lends $62.9M Against Midtown's Doral Warehouse Buy
The acquisition loan puts a fresh debt basis on the small-bay portfolio The American Developer covered when it traded in August.
Knighthead Funding lent $62.92 million to Midtown Capital Partners against its purchase of 13 small-bay industrial buildings in Doral, backing the $86 million off-market deal Midtown closed with the Waas family in August. The loan lands within a mile of Miami International Airport, in a submarket where small-bay vacancy sits under 3 percent.
Why it matters
For developers pricing debt on South Florida industrial, this loan is a live basis marker on a portfolio The American Developer already tracked from the equity side. Midtown paid $296 a square foot in August, near a Miami-Dade record, to take out the Waas family’s decades-old holdings. Knighthead’s acquisition loan now shows what a specialty lender will advance against that basis: roughly 73 percent loan-to-purchase-price. Alexandra Wiggins, a Knighthead vice president, said the deal “epitomizes what we look for when financing a deal, an attractive collection of assets with significant upside in an excellent infill location.”
The numbers
Knighthead’s loan totals $62.92 million against the $86 million Midtown paid for the portfolio, which Commercial Observer put at 13 urban-infill, small-bay buildings spanning 290,000 square feet on 13.33 acres. That leverage point, about 73 percent of purchase price, is the new comparable for infill Doral industrial debt. Knighthead’s team of Jonathan Daniel, Wiggins and Joseph Marraccini originated the loan; Arrow Real Estate Advisors, led by Morris Betesh, Morris Dabbah and Zach Strauss, arranged it for Midtown.
What’s next
The financing closes out the capital stack on a deal Miami developers have watched since August, when Midtown beat competing bidders for a family portfolio that had never traded. With small-bay vacancy still under 3 percent and no new infill supply coming, expect the $296-a-foot basis and this loan’s leverage point to anchor underwriting on the next Doral warehouse portfolio that surfaces.
On the record
What we checked ourselves, and where you can check it too.
- Our coverageThe loan finances the same portfolio The American Developer covered on August 30: 14 buildings, 300,000 square feet along NW 54th and NW 56th Streets and NW 79th and NW 82nd Avenues, bought from the Waas family's Waas Realty for $86 million, or $296 a square foot.Read our earlier story →