Arnaud Karsenti.
Arnaud Karsenti
Managing principal at 13th Floor Investments
When Arnaud Karsenti’s parents first said “Bonjour!” to Miami four decades ago, they couldn’t have anticipated how their young son would eventually help shape the city’s skyline. The Parisian family — set on a new life in America — weren’t in real estate, but thankfully Miami returned a resounding “Bienvenue!”
Today, Karsenti’s 13th Floor Investments has approximately $5 billion of assets under management, with 40 professionals dedicated to its expanding, impressive portfolio spanning residential, commercial and industrial properties as well as value-add opportunities and new developments.
As managing principal, Karsenti brings that je ne sais quoi to the firm’s investment blueprint, which has its roots in market opportunities coming out of the Global Financial Crisis. Since then, 13th Floor has completed 65 deals. It also raised a $300 million fund — its fifth vehicle in total — for distressed opportunities in February 2023, but this OG is sticking to his knitting when it comes to deploying dollars in South Florida and the Southeast.
“Our core strategies remain largely unchanged,” Karsenti told CO in January. “We’re deeply invested in the residential mixed-use space in Florida and the Southeast. Within that, we’re very active and continue to see opportunities in multifamily, single-family rentals and condominiums.”
He’s far from Paris these days (4,500 miles, give or take), and while he retains the joie de vivre of his original hometown, Karsenti is a Miamian through and through today — and proud of not only of his city, but also what his industry has done for its meteoric rise and gravitational pull.
“I think there’s been a total transformation of the perception of Miami,” he said. “I give the real estate business, frankly, a fair amount of credit for that, because the real estate business has made it interesting for people to come down and be here.”
In the meantime, there’s nothing unlucky about this particular 13, with headline-grabbing projects under its belt such as the Link at Douglas, a 7.5-acre mixed-use, transit-oriented development in Miami, Village Square in Coral Springs, and Parks at Delray in Delray Beach — and plenty more to come in its busy pipeline of deals.
