May 23, 2005 -- Leviev Boymelgreen has acquired another property in the Park West area of Downtown Miami. “This landscape of old warehouses and semi-abandoned buildings is changing face,” said veteran commercial broker Jeff Cohen of Esslinger-Wooten- Maxwell, who handled the $2,050,000 transaction. “Three years ago few would have dared to venture there at night, some even referred to it as the combat zone,” Cohen said. But like with so many other areas of this booming city, things have radically changed.
“ Three years ago few would have dared to venture there at night, some even referred to it as the combat zone ”
“Today there is no lack of interest in property in Park West, once called Overtown,” Cohen said. Boymelgreen, who bought the properties that land banker Hank Sopher had assembled over a three-year period, continues his acquisition strategy and is planning the developments in the district. It all started with the designation of portion of the area as a “24 Hours Entertainment District.” Dirty warehouses are now being turned into successful clubs, gyms and restaurants. To the casual visitor and the nocturnal crowd that populates the once deserted streets the improvements may already seem too good to be true. But people in the know are already betting their money that the future of Park West is much bigger than that.
Jeff Cohen is one of those people. He has been around for thirty years, and he was a major force in the transformation of the once equally derelict South Beach. Cohen has been buying and selling properties in Park West as both a broker and an investor. “The real estate in Park West is today the most important real estate in Miami's downtown area, the city's new frontier,” said Cohen. “Miami is developing into a veritable city of the future, as advanced as Hong-Kong and as trendy as Paris.” In fact, smart technology and state-of-the-art design encompass the new structures in a way never before experienced in the country, at least not in such a massive fashion.
“Smaller lots are also selling,” adds Luigi Mercurio, Cohen's partner at EWM Commercial. “The best advise we can give to the owners is to start getting together and assembling their pieces. Small properties are interesting to developers only if they can be incorporated into a larger project, and the risk is that a developer may decide not to pay top dollars for an unnecessary piece. And once a project is completed, the value of a neighboring smaller lot will never be what it could have been when associated with a large project.”
About Us: EWM Commercial provides specialized real estate services to financial institutions, investors and land owners of every type. Our commercial associates are among the most experienced in the industry, and the Division has extensive experience working with broad range of entities, including large national institutions, developers, and individual investors.
Founded in 1964, Esslinger-Wooten-Maxwell is one of the largest real estate services firms in America, with sales of more than $3 billion in 2004. The full-service firm has 950 associates and staff throughout 13 offices in Miami-Dade and Broward counties, located in Coral Gables, Coconut Grove, Ponce de Leon, South Miami, Pinecrest/Palmetto Bay, Miami Beach, Key Biscayne, Brickell, Plantation, Weston, Southwest Broward and Las Olas. EWM offers residential and commercial real estate services, corporate relocation, and international services, as well as home mortgage, title closing services and property insurance through their subsidiary companies, EWM Mortgage, EWM Title and EWM Insurance.
Contact:
Jeffrey M. Cohen & Luigi Mercurio
419 Arthur Godfrey Road
Miami Beach, FL 33140
Tel: 305.534.5333
Fax: 305.534.9805
