Ownership of the Site of the Historic Seagull Hotel Consolidated Under JHG Holdings
February 10, 2018Miami Beach has seen a major change of ownership of one of its best-known properties. The historic Seagull Hotel, set on a lot measured at 53,430 square feet, ended up with a new landlord recently after a court-ordered auction resulted in the consolidation of ownership under a single firm.
The hotel has been a fixture on Miami Beach for quite some time located at 100 21st Street. The hotel has 172 rooms with eight stories and 116.335 square feet. The Seagull was built in 1948 and has since been placed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Ownership of the land was consolidated under one of the various entities that previously owned stakes of the land. Prior to the sale, the land was owned by a conglomeration of 7 LLCs which had entered into a 99-year leasing agreement with the Seagull.
A court order forced a group of LLC’s which, combined, owned 58.3% of the land to put the land up for auction., The court order was the result of a lawsuit by the minority owner, JHG Holdings, stemming from a clash about the direction of the land moving forward. The suit was filed in 2016 in the Miami-Dade County Circuit Court.
JHG Holdings, which had owned 41.7% of the land prior to the auction became the full owner, winning the auction with a bid of $20.74 million. JHG Holdings is led by manager Jeffery S. Dagowitz and is a hospitality and commercial real estate firm based out of New York. JHG took out a loan of $29.75 million from Star Mortgage to finance the acquisition. The auction, which was run by Fisher Auction, took place last year and was finalized in county records just recently.
JHG is now the landlord for the Seagull Hotel in a land lease running through 2049 with an annual rent set at $35,000. The LLC’s on the selling side were: LBMP Holdings, Biarritz GH, JCS South Beach, Einbinder Milford LLC, 1986 Young Family LLC, TM Collins LLC, and AJK 21st Street LLC. Jeffrey Dagowitz was a managing member of some of these LLCs.
What Dagowitz and JHG Holdings plans on doing with the land moving forward is anyone’s guess, but JHG’s consolidated ownership position has put it in the driver’s seat for any future decisions.
