Witkoff lands $302M to build 890 rentals on the Miami Arena site
Five years after paying $94M for the dirt, Witkoff has construction money for phase one. The other two towers do not.
Witkoff and Monroe Capital have closed a $302.6 million construction loan for 700 North Miami Avenue, the first tower on the 4.7-acre downtown site that held the Miami Arena until 2008. Apollo Global Management’s Athene Annuity and Life Company and J.P. Morgan Chase took an existing $57.3 million loan and increased it by $245.3 million. For developers watching whether big downtown Miami rental phases can still be financed, this one just cleared.
Why it matters
The structure is the story. This was not a fresh construction facility competed out to the market; it was an upsize of a loan already on the books, which is how a lender group that already understands the collateral avoids repricing the whole basis in a 6.5% rate environment. That path is available to sponsors with an existing lender relationship and an existing land loan, and largely closed to sponsors without one.
The second signal is phasing discipline. The venture filed in 2022 for three towers totaling 2,195 residential units, 540,000 square feet of office, and 50,000 square feet of retail. What got funded is 890 units and 15,000 square feet of ground-floor retail. The office component is not in this draw. In a downtown where office is repricing hard, splitting the entitlement so the rental phase can move without waiting on the office phase is the practical lesson.
The numbers
The $302.6 million against roughly 890 units works out to about $340,000 of loan per unit. The land underneath cost $94 million in 2021, roughly $20 million an acre, meaning five years elapsed between the site purchase and the first construction dollar.
The location does most of the underwriting work. The parcel sits between MiamiCentral station and the 27-acre Miami Worldcenter master development, which is the densest concentration of delivered and under-construction product in the urban core. Alex Witkoff runs the firm.
What’s next
The two remaining towers, the 540,000 square feet of office, and roughly 1,305 additional units are unfunded. Whether they get built on the filed plan or get re-cut toward more residential is the question this loan does not answer, and the answer will say more about downtown Miami office than any leasing report. For the same submarket’s permit-stage activity, see One West Twelve’s vertical permit, and track the market at the Miami hub.