Ocean Bank Provides $70M Construction Loan for Aventura Mixed-Use Dev
By Julia Echikson February 11, 2026 1:25 pm
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The Cababie family of Mexican real estate firm Grupo Gicsa nabbed a $70 million construction loan to build a mixed-used building along Biscayne Boulevard in Aventura, Fla., property records show.
Ocean Bank provided the financing, which covers a 1.5-acre site at 20955 Biscayne Boulevard, adjacent to Northeast 209th Street, about a mile north of the Aventura Mall. The 142,153-square-foot development, called Central Aventura, will rise nine stories, housing office and retail space, according to filings to Miami-Dade County. Meridian Capital Group brokered the debt.
Members of the Cababie family, including Elias and Jacobo Cababie Dichi, purchased the site for $13 million in 2019. Grupo Gicsa owns shopping malls across Mexico, and the firm had ventured into the U.S. but faced a number of foreclosures following the Great Recession. It’s unclear whether Grupo Gicsa has a stake in the Aventura project.
Other people behind mixed-use projects in Aventura include Adam Neumman, the founder and former CEO of WeWork. In 2024, a joint venture between Neumman’s Flow and Israeli developer Canada Global purchased a three-building office campus for $117 million and filed plans to add three 29-story multifamily towers a year later.
A representative for Grupo Gicsa did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Update: The story was updated to include Meridian Capital Group’s involvement.
Julia Echikson can be reached at jechikson@commercialobserver.com.
