Procacci sells entitled Bayview site to Willow Bridge for $24.7M

Willow Bridge Property Company paid $24.7 million for a fully entitled 2.4-acre development site at 1040 Bayview Drive in Fort Lauderdale, buying land that already carries approval for 259 apartments instead of taking on the entitlement risk itself. The Dallas-based multifamily firm bought the parcel, near the Galleria Mall and the Intracoastal Waterway, from an affiliate of Procacci Development Corporation.

Why it matters

Procacci spent more than a decade moving the site through Fort Lauderdale’s approval process, most recently winning a Site Plan Level III sign-off for The Residences at Bayview. Willow Bridge is paying a premium to skip that process entirely rather than assembling and entitling its own South Florida pipeline. For any developer weighing whether to fight for entitlements or buy shovel-ready land in this submarket, the trade shows a national multifamily operator choosing certainty over basis, and paying more than three times Procacci’s cost to get it.

The numbers

Broward County Property Appraiser records show Procacci’s affiliate, Sunrise and Bayview Partners LLC, paid $7.9 million for the 2.4-acre site on June 30, 2014, recorded under deed instrument 112388553 and folio 4942-36-12-0040. The entitled project calls for 259 residential units, including 12 workforce housing units, across a single eight-story building with 566 parking spaces. Willow Bridge’s acquiring entity borrowed $14.5 million from Reinsurance Group of America to help fund the purchase.

What’s next

Willow Bridge has not announced a construction timeline or confirmed whether it will build the approved design or seek changes at the City of Fort Lauderdale. The site sits inside the South Florida multifamily pipeline, where entitled land near the Galleria corridor is scarce enough that a buyer with capital ready to deploy can skip years of local approvals other sponsors are still fighting through.