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September 2, 2010 |
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Real Estate Week: Profile
Hometown makeover
Longtime broker Sonia Blair could help recast the Coral Gables skyline
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| June 25, 2004 |
By: Oscar Pedro Musibay |
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Sonia M. Blair
Photo by
Aixa Montero
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onia Blair’s ambition has helped make her the catalyst of a redevelopment movement that could transform low-rise Coral Gables neighborhoods populated by small 1950s-era apartment buildings into blocks of eight- and 16-story condominiums.
The independent real estate broker’s clients include Harry Weitzer, who since selling his home-building company in 1999 has shifted his attention to condo development.
Blair has helped Weitzer assemble properties for at least three residential projects in the Gables.
She assembled an entire block on Alhambra Circle for Weitzer, in which she located the property, represented the sellers and helped Weitzer close.
He paid $3.8 million on May 26 for four properties — 32, 40, 44 and 50 Alhambra Circle — where he plans to demolish a sleepy row of apartment buildings to make way for a pod of million-dollar, three-story townhouses with double garages.
Blair also put together Weitzer’s deal at 626 and 642 Valencia Ave. where he plans to build Valencia Grande, 28-unit luxury condominium where prices will start at $750,000. The project will also include two luxury townhouses priced at more than $1.3 million.
Blair spends a lot of time in her car traveling from meeting to meeting. While tooling around the Gables in her Mercedes-Benz, traveling the edges of the city’s commercial corridors, she searches for residential properties ripe for redevelopment. Frustrated, she encourages other drivers to go around her as she slows to a crawl, taking the measure of each building, rattling off information about zoning and price and pointing out properties under contract.
“Hold on,” she says, craning her neck, her hands tight on the steering wheel. “Can you see if that building is for sale? Is that a for-sale sign?”
The New York-born Blair moved to Coral Gables with her family in 1948. She attended Coral Gables High School and the University of Miami.
In 1969, she worked as an associate with the firm William B. Russell and Associates, at a time when few women were players in the real estate industry. By 1973, she went out on her own, started Sonia M. Blair Inc. and focused on commercial properties.
She has dabbled in high-end residential. She sold homes to Latin crooners Julio Iglesias, Jose Luis “El Puma” Rodriguez and Jose Jose.
She holds high on her list of accomplishments multiple sales during the last three years of 40 Calabria Ave., a 12,458-square-foot lot with a two-story, eight-unit apartment building. She’s brokered its sale three times, most recently to a group from Spain that bought it for $1.6 million in 2003. At the site, the group plans to build a 14-unit condominium called Villa Del Torre.
She also works with the BEC Group, whose principals include Frank Espinosa, with whom she claims to have started the office condo trend in Coral Gables.
“He and I started office condos in Coral Gables,” said Blair, a statement Espinosa echoes. “Everyone has jumped on the bandwagon.”
To pave the way for the office condo project, Blair brokered BEC’s purchase in early 2002 for $5.3 million of five separate two-story buildings known as the Nita apartments on Douglas Road between Minorca and Navarre avenues.
On that site, at 2000 Douglas Road, BEC is building The Minorca, a $40 million mixed-use project with office condos, residential condos and retail.
The project is scheduled for completion by November.
Espinosa said the company approached Blair three years ago about finding a development opportunity. “She’s highly connected,” said Frank Espinosa Jr., a principal of BEC. “She lives in Coral Gables and knows the ins and outs and knows everyone there.”
When Blair brought them the Nita deal in late 2001, BEC wanted to buy the entire block, but there was a holdout property owner who was “happy with his rental income” and didn’t want to sell. With Blair’s help, BEC was able to close on 80 percent.
“She’s a people person,” Espinosa said. “She’ll find a way to meet a property owner. You can send him all the letters you want, but she’ll get you to shake their hand and get them to open up like any good salesperson … to start the line of communication and possibly cut a deal.”
She currently has 4120 Laguna on the market for $6.8 million and 4111 Le Jeune Road priced at $5.5 million. She is positioning the properties, a pair of adjacent single-story commercial office strips near Coral Gables High School, as a site for multistory office buildings.
She also helped turn an educator and a retired FPL employee into real estate players.
Yife Tien, chief operations officer of American University of the Caribbean and principal of Tien Family L.P., has assembled property near the David William Hotel that he hopes to flip to a condo builder.
And with her help, Jaime Saldarriaga, a retired FPL employee, has been acquiring land on Valencia with an eye to selling the parcels to developers.
Tien owns 729, 737 and 741 Valencia Ave., where he had plans to build an 11-story condo with 38 units, one of a handful of projects at the center of a temporary building moratorium.
Tien also owns the property at 718 Valencia Ave., a two-story apartment building with six units, which he hopes to one day develop into a condominium.
Attorney Tucker Gibbs, who is representing residents before the city opposed to development around the David William Hotel, said those looking to redevelop the area don’t generate good will from most residents.
“People who do this they do it because they want to make money,” said Gibbs, who doesn’t know Blair personally. “It’s about, ‘Hey I can buy a property for cheap and build on it and make a lot of money.’ It’s the American f——— way … but there are people who have lived in these neighborhoods for years and see them as their homes.”
In March, the Coral Gables City Commission approved a 120-day moratorium barring construction of buildings taller than three stories in a large residential district being eyed by developers for condos. The area stretches south from Biltmore Way to Bird Road, between Le Jeune Road and Granada Boulevard.
Tien said he understands the feelings of longtime residents and he believes a common ground can be found between the city, residents and property owners. Blair is intimately familiar with all sides because she’s lived in Coral Gables for more than five decades.
Tien said its Blair’s personal attention that makes her successful.
“In her business it is cutthroat. There’s lots of jealousy, rivalry, backstabbing, all that bad stuff. A code of honor doesn’t exist. She deals with the business in a very professional way, he said. “She’s caring.”
Oscar Pedro Musibay can be reached at omusibay@floridabiz.com or at (305) 347-6651.
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