ROVR Snags $95M in Financing for Finished Downtown Miami Tower
By Mark Hallum July 15, 2022 2:47 pm
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ROVR Development is homing in on Downtown Miami to feed the ravenous demand for housing in South Florida.
ROVR just locked down $95 million in permanent financing from PNC Bank to replace the original $53 million construction loan on the recently completed 300-unit Grand Station Apartments, a residential building at 240 North Miami Avenue. ROVR partnered with the Miami Parking Authority (MPA) on the project to increase the amount of parking downtown by 1,100 spaces.
In addition, the development company is working on three other residential towers in the immediate vicinity of the Grand Station Project.
“There are a series of opportunities here that we’re capitalizing on. I think everyone wants to live close to the action, and that’s what I think downtown affords the tenant,” Oscar Rodriguez, a founding partner of ROVR, told CO. “There’s a very healthy mix of retail and residential uses as well as cultural and sporting venues. It’s just exploding right now.”
Just last week ROVR secured a $76 million construction loan from Madison Realty Capital for one of the three additional towers, a 343-unit condominium at 225 North Miami Avenue dubbed District 225 in partnership with Related Group. District 225 offers condo owners the ability to list the property on Airbnb for short- and long-term rentals.
Like Grand Station, ROVR is negotiating a 99-year land lease with the MPA for two more high-rise towers, which will be known as College Station. The plan is to build 1,200 units, 600 in each building, mostly reserved for the local workforce at a reduced rental rate.
The 2-acre site where College Station will be located currently houses parking structures that are over 50 years old and will be demolished, Rodriguez said. In their place, a new 1,350-space garage will serve as the podium for the two towers.
Housing is not the only market in South Florida where unprecedented growth has been taking place in recent years; companies relocating their headquarters to Miami have put office developers to work as buildings rise to the occasion.
The public-private partnership between ROVR and the MPA means District 225 and College Station would be symbiotic for both entities.
“In view of the scarcity of available land in the urban core, the Grand Station collaboration gave Miami Parking Authority the opportunity to expand the residential and parking footprint in this section of Downtown Miami,” MPA CEO Alejandra Argudin said in a statement.
District 225 is expected to be completed in 2024, and construction will break ground on July 20, according to ROVR.
Mark Hallum can be reached at mhallum@commercialobserver.com.
