Miami Design District Owners Land $125M to Build Multifamily Tower

The owners of the Miami Design District are adding rental housing as part of an expansion of the 30-acre luxury shopping mall. 

Amerant Bank and Bank Hapoalim‘s U.S branch, called BHI, provided $125 million to finance the construction of Cassi, a 107-unit multifamily tower at 91 Northeast 36th Street, just south of the Miami Design District and Interstate 195. Besides the housing component, the 20-story development will include 23,000 square feet of retail space on a half-acre site. Units will average 1,509 square feet.

The outdoor mall is also set to further expand. In 2022, Craig Robins’s Dacra, alongside partners, bought a collection of retail buildings along Northeast 39th Street for $166 million, with plans to add more retail, a hotel and possibly condos, which architect David Chipperfield will master design. Chipperfield won the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2023.

The development team for Cassi consists of the Miami Design District Associates, Michigan-based Hunter Pasteur, and Palm Beach Gardens-based The Forbes Company. Miami Design District Associates — a partnership between Dacra and LVMH-backed L Catterton — developed most of the Miami Design District, which today is home to Chanel, Dior and Hermes boutiques. 

Walker & Dunlop’s Sean Reimer, Aaron Appel, Keith Kurland, Jonathan Schwartz, Adam Schwartz, Jordan Casella and Michael Stepniewski represented the developers in securing the loan package. Representatives for Dacra did not immidialtely respond to requests for comment.

Update: The story was updated to clarify that a portion of the funds came from BHI. 

Julia Echikson can be reached at jechikson@commercialobserver.com.