Ram Realty Sells South Miami-Dade LA Fitness Gym For $15M

Ram Realty Advisors sold a recently completed standalone retail building leased to LA Fitness in south Miami-Dade County for $15.4 million.

An affiliate of West Aventura Developers, a Sunny Isles Beach-based firm led by Marina Kessler and Gustavo Lumer, acquired the 5.3-acre retail site at 15400 Southwest 127th Avenue, records show. The buyer obtained a $3.5 million mortgage from Miami-based Ocean Bank.

The deal breaks down to $343 per square foot for the 45,000-square-foot building. 

LA Fitness signed a 15-year lease with a projected $925,000 net operating income annually, an offering memorandum states. 

Ram Realty, a Palm Beach Gardens-based developer led by CEO Casey Cummings, acquired the LA Fitness site as part of the company’s 2014 purchase of 80 acres adjacent to Zoo Miami from the University of Miami. Ram’s plans for the massive assemblage stalled when environmentalists sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other governmental agencies for approving an allegedly incomplete conservation plan. 

In 2018, the lawsuit was settled after a judge had temporarily halted clearing of the land. Since then, Ram Realty has developed a massive mixed-use project in phases. The firm completed a Walmart Supercenter, other small retail buildings and Cortland South Kendall, a 408-unit apartment complex. In 2021, Ram sold Cortland South and an adjacent development site to multifamily investment firm Cortland for a combined $174.3 million.

The same year, Ram paid $10.5 million for another nearby development site approved for a 353-unit apartment complex. In September, Ram scored a $80.6 million construction loan for that project. 

West Aventura’s Kessler and Lumer also lead Sunny Isles Beach-based commercial brokerage Lumer Real Estate. Between 2017 and 2020, West Aventura assembled 8 acres in Ojus, an unincorporated neighborhood in North Miami-Dade for a combined $6.8 million, records show. Miami-Dade County approved plans for a $200 million mixed-use project consisting of three buildings ranging from eight to 12 stories. The development would have 625 apartments, 164,920 square feet of retail and 1,523 parking spaces, according to published reports.