Waste Management pays $380M for 146 acres in Medley

Waste Management paid nearly $380 million for about 146 acres at 9515 Northwest 95th Avenue in Medley, buying from an entity tied to the Hialeah Gardens-based Lowell Dunn Company. It is the largest Miami-Dade land trade recorded this year, and the structure is as interesting as the number: Lowell Dunn financed $366.8 million of the purchase itself, on a note scheduled to mature in 2046.

Why it matters

Every developer in Miami-Dade is competing for industrial dirt, and the going rate is the argument. The most recent comparable Medley vacant-industrial trade in our own land wire cleared near $108 per square foot. Waste Management paid roughly $60 per square foot on this one, computed from the price against 6.36 million square feet of land.

That gap tells you what was actually bought. This is not a warehouse site being underwritten to warehouse rents. The parcel sits adjacent to Waste Management’s existing 170-acre Medley landfill complex, parallel to Route 27 near Everglades National Park, and roughly half of it is vacant with the balance in use as surface truck parking. The buyer is paying for capacity next to an asset it already controls, not for buildable industrial square footage.

The seller financing matters just as much. A 20-year note held by the seller on a $380 million trade means this closed without a bank setting the terms, which is how strategic buyers move on land that a lender would struggle to appraise.

The numbers

Nearly $380 million for about 146 acres. A $366.8 million seller note maturing in 2046, covering roughly 97 percent of the price. An existing adjacent landfill complex of 170 acres. A recorded easement lets Waste Management run underground stormwater pipes across neighboring Lowell Dunn property, which is a tell about site work already being planned.

What’s next

Commercial Observer reports the land will likely go to landfill use, but no expansion has been announced and no zoning application or permit has been confirmed. Anyone underwriting land in the Medley submarket should watch what gets filed here, because a 146-acre non-industrial outcome next door changes the comp set for everything around it. More South Florida coverage.