Javier Cervera Jr. moved his real estate firm’s headquarters to Coral Gables from Brickell.
Cervera Real Estate Ventures opened this week at the 4,000-square-foot building at 3132 Ponce De Leon Boulevard, according to a company news release. It nearly doubled its space from its previous 2,300-square-foot headquarters at 1800 Southwest First Avenue in Miami.
The firm paid $3.4 million for its new building in 2022, the release says. The building, completed in 1949, sits on less than a quarter-acre lot, property records show. Cervera invested about $1 million to overhaul the building, including new windows, roof, floors, plumbing and electrical systems, the release says.
“We just left the four walls,” Cervera said. “Everything was redone.”
Cervera Real Estate, which Cervera founded in 2005, is a real estate investment firm that also provides property and asset management services. It has about 18 staff members, including property maintenance employees.
Cervera is the son of Alicia Cervera and the brother of Veronica Cervera Goeseke and Alicia Cervera Lamadrid. The three women lead Miami-based luxury residential brokerage firm Cervera Real Estate.
Cervera Real Estate Ventures, which isn’t affiliated with the family’s brokerage firm, has a portfolio of about 350,000 square feet of South Florida retail space. It’s a long-term asset holder, often seizing on opportunities to increase properties’ values through renovations.
In past purchases, Cervera dropped $11.3 million for the 74,400-square-foot shopping plaza at 3800 West 12th Avenue in Hialeah in 2018, and also $25.3 million for the 83,700-square-foot Tropical Park Plaza at 7931 and 8011 Southwest 40th Street near Westchester in 2022, according to records.
Also, Cervera sold a 1.4-acre development assemblage at 1801 Northeast Second Avenue in Miami’s Arts & Entertainment District for $30 million in 2022. Entities tied to Cervera had purchased the parcels for $5.6 million from 2011 to 2014.
Cervera divested from its multifamily holdings in recent years.
In one of the most recent apartment sales, the company sold the pair of three-story Miami Airport Villas complex with 90 units at 4325 to 4335 Northwest South Tamiami Canal Drive in Miami for $20.1 million in June. The deal was for $7 million more than Cervera had paid in 2020.
Cervera’s divestment from apartments came months before the market made a complete turnaround from the boom times of the past four years. By now, rents are flatlining, though some data shows they are dropping, amid a hefty construction pipeline and slowed leasing.
For the company’s asset management division, it invests in real estate with partners and manages property financials. It only provides asset management services for properties in its portfolio, Cervera said. Its property management arm extends to both its own and other owners’ real estate.
Though Cervera has thought about expanding his firm into commercial real estate brokerage services, that’s not the primary focus currently, he said.
“What we’re really growing now is property management,” Cervera said. “That’s the part of the business that’s just growing organically.”
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Residential sales stretched from Coral Gables to Jupiter in the latest roundup of South Florida luxury deals.
Prices ranged from $10.2 million to $14 million, with buyers and sellers hailing from real estate, concrete and beverage industries.
Coral Gables
In Coral Gables, Suzanna and Jose “Pepe” Cancio sold a waterfront house for $10.2 million in the gated Cocoplum neighborhood.
Records show the Cancios’ Lerida Investments LLC sold the house at 152 Paloma Drive to an entity named for the address. The true buyer is unknown. Lissette Garcia of One Sotheby’s International Realty had the listing, and Lourdes Alatriste of Douglas Elliman brought the buyer.
The Cancios own C&C Concrete Pumping, a concrete firm active in Florida and Texas. They bought the Coral Gables home for $6 million in 2022, records show. The couple renovated the 5,800-square-foot, five-bedroom, five-bathroom house last year. It spans 0.3 acres and 100 feet of waterfront and has a pool.
They listed it for $12 million in October, Redfin shows.
Fort Lauderdale
Boston real estate mogul Joseph Fallon sold a waterfront house in Fort Lauderdale for $10.3 million.
Records show he and Susan Fallon sold the home at 505 Idlewyld Drive to Brent and Carol Johnson. The sale included an adjacent 0.2-acre vacant lot at 2628 Alamanda Court, according to property records.
Fallon founded the Fallon Company, a Boston-based commercial real estate development firm with projects in Boston, Raleigh and Charlotte.
He bought the Idlewyld Drive property for $2.1 million in 2012, records show. The couple tore down the existing house and built a 4,900-square-foot house in 2021, according to property records. It has six bedrooms, seven bathrooms, one half-bathroom, a pool and a dock, the listing shows.
The Fallons listed it for $14 million in October, Redfin shows.
Boca Raton
In Boca Raton’s gated Royal Palm Yacht & Country Club community, spec developer Jeffrey Norman sold off part of a waterfront teardown property he bought for $23.5 million in October.
Records show Norman sold about a quarter-acre at 2408 East Maya Palm Drive to the Bush Lake Trust, with Timothy Miller as trustee, for $13.5 million.
Norman is a luxury spec developer in Boca Raton. He bought the 0.8-acre property from the estate of the late Patti Carpenter. She was a widow of DuPont heir William K. Carpenter, whose brother Robert Ruliph Morgan Carpenter Jr. was the longtime owner of the Philadelphia Phillies.
At the time of the purchase, Norman said he planned to split the lots and build two homes. The estate has been demolished.
Jupiter
The family of real estate developer Leonard Korman sold the late mogul’s house in Jupiter’s gated Admirals Cove community for $14 million.
Records show Korman’s family sold the home at 380 Regatta Drive to Deborah H. Everhart. Everhart is a member of the Harrison family that owns Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated, the largest independently owned bottler of Coca-Cola products in the U.S. Her brother is the company’s longtime CEO, J. Frank Harrison, III.
Thomas Frankel of Admirals Cove Realty Co had the listing, and William Kirk of Compass brought the buyer.
Korman was a scion of the Korman family, a Philadelphia real estate dynasty that started its business in the early 20th century, the website of Korman Ventures shows. Leonard Korman died in 2023, according to published reports.
He bought his Admirals Cove house for $755,000 in 1993. Built on 0.6 acres in 1999, the 6,400-square-foot house has four bedrooms, five bathrooms, one half-bathroom and a pool, according to property records. It spans 180 feet of the Intracoastal Waterway, the listing shows.
Korman’s estate listed the house for $19 million in September, according to Redfin.
Rishi Kapoor believes he can sell Location Ventures’ headquarters for more money than the offer that is currently on the table.
Last week, the court-appointed receiver managing Coral Gables-based Location Ventures revealed she had negotiated a settlement to sell the company’s office building at 299 Alhambra Circle to Stephen Bittel’s Terranova Corporation via a pending foreclosure case.
But Bernice Lee, the receiver, is facing opposition from Kapoor, who alleges Terranova is trying to acquire the property at a significant discount, according to recent filings in Miami federal court. The dispute is tied to an ongoing federal lawsuit against Kapoor, Location Ventures and its affiliates filed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Lee and Kapoor’s attorney, Fred Schwartz, each declined comment. Motions filed this week show that Kapoor is willing to put up a fight in the disposition of commercial real estate assets he onced controlled as CEO of Location Ventures.
In a motion filed on Monday, Kapoor requested that Chief U.S. District Judge Cecilia Altonaga — who is presiding over the SEC civil case — postpone the sale to Terranova for 90 days. A Terranova spokesperson declined to comment.
“Let Mr. Kapoor, an acknowledged expert on effectively buying and selling properties in South Florida, put out a call for offers and run a public process to attempt to market the property at a fair price,” Kapoor’s motion states. “Perhaps [Terranova] upon learning that they may lose the ability to build a ‘substantial redevelopment opportunity’ will return with a better offer. Or perhaps a different buyer will emerge from a fair public offering.”
An entity managed by Terranova CFO Scott Fitzgerald, which owns a delinquent loan secured by the 299 Alhambra Circle property, negotiated the proposed settlement with Lee. The five-story building was completed in 1958.
In October, Terranova acquired the mortgage, records show. The previous lender sued the Location Ventures entity that owns the property last year for allegedly defaulting on the loan, which now stands at $13.8 million, including interest and fees.
The proposed settlement agreement entails the receiver consenting to a final judgment in the foreclosure case. In exchange, Terranova will pay $100,000 to the Location Ventures entity and will agree to apply roughly $300,000 in rent that is being held in escrow to the mortgage debt, court filings show.
Last week, Kapoor’s legal team informed Lee that Kapoor would drop any objections if Terranova releases him as a personal guarantor on the delinquent loan.
Terranova and its partners, Torose Equities and Lndmrk Development, own a 13-story office building at 255 Alhambra Circle, which is adjacent to the Location Ventures headquarters.
In his motion on Monday, Kapoor alleges that prior to his stepping down as Location Ventures CEO last year he had discussions with Torose Equities principal Scott Sherman to sell the building at 299 Alhambra Circle. At the time, the property was listed for sale for $22 million with CBRE.
Terranova, Torose and Lndmrk were interested in redeveloping both office buildings into a new mixed-use building of 16 or 17 stories, utilizing Florida’s Live Local Act, the motion states. The planned development would have offices and apartments, Kapoor alleges.
“Mr. Sherman believed, as did Mr. Kapoor, that the rapidly growing office rental rates in Coconut Grove and Brickell would push up the rental returns in Coral Gables,” the motion states. “When the building was listed with CBRE, a ‘carve out’ was included for Mr. Sherman’s group, who were discussing a sales price in the ‘upper teens’ with Mr. Kapoor.”
Sherman did not respond to a request for comment.
Terranova, Torose and Lndmrk ended efforts to purchase the building at 299 Alhambra after Kapoor resigned as CEO last summer. At the time, Miami-Dade’s real estate community perceived that Location Ventures was “having a fire sale” of all its properties, the motion states.
Instead, Terranova purchased the 299 Alhambra property’s delinquent loan “seemingly to obtain the building at a price much lower than that discussed months before,” the motion alleges. The document also claims that the last appraisal of the property, conducted in 2022, was for $18.5 million.
Since the property was listed, Location Ventures received offers of between $11 million and $14.5 million. The highest bidder was under contract to buy the building, but backed out in January, court filings state.
In a response on Tuesday, receiver Lee dismissed Kapoor’s recounting of his failed negotiations with Terranova and Torose as moot. While it is “very likely” that Terranova acquired the delinquent mortgage “with the goal of minimizing the amount they would have to pay to acquire the property,” it doesn’t change the fact that the loan is in default and is accruing a default interest rate of nearly $250,000 per month, Lee’s response states.
“No better offer has been received after nearly nine months of marketing,” Lee’s response states. “Mr. Kapoor is not genuinely interested in preserving equity for the receivership entities’ investors. He is only concerned with mitigating his own personal exposure.”
Furthermore, Kapoor and his lawyers have not responded to her suggestion that he put $13 million plus the per diem interest and other charges in a trust account while he pursues a better offer, Lee’s response states.