BRICKELL CHANGES COMING: A hotel and branded condominiums are slated to replace the 1001 Brickell Bay Drive office building and the Yacht Club Apartments next door as the first phase of development that is zoned for more than 3 million square feet on 485 continuous feet of Biscayne Bay frontage. Denver-based Aimco sold the two Brickell-area properties for $520 million last week to a joint venture of Oak Row Equities and Miami-based OKO Group. The 4.25-acre parcel has zoning that can allow for multiple towers of up to 1,049 feet in height. Aimco said the sale included $85 million of transferrable seller financing notes that it provided to the buyer at closing. The notes have a two-year term and two one-year extensions at an average interest rate of 18%. TYKO capital provided a $464.5 million acquisition and predevelopment loan, the buyers said. The buyers said the assemblage is “the largest and last remaining developable site of this scale in Brickell.” OKO’s portfolio includes the nearby 830 Brickell office tower that recently opened.
BRIDGE TO HOCKEY: The Coast Guard will keep the Twelfth Avenue Bridge over the Miami River closed to boats from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. and again from 10:30 p.m. to midnight on Friday, Jan. 2, to allow freer flow of auto traffic to and from loanDepot Park, where the National Hockey League’s Winter Classic ice hockey game will be played outdoors in Florida. The game between the Florida Panthers and the New York Rangers will be the first outdoor hockey game ever in Florida, with a temporary rink stretching from the baseball stadium’s rightfield foul line to the leftfield foul line. The other half of the baseball field will have a Florida beach scene with a street hockey rink that televiewers can see globally. Yes, the stadium’s roof and windows will be open to the elements, but the league has brought in two mobile refrigeration units with water piped to 253 aluminum pans under the rink. Although the bridge will be closed before and after the game, the Coast Guard notes that public vessels and vessels in distress can pass anytime.
NEW YEAR’S EVE BOAT TRAFFIC: The Brickell Avenue drawbridge over the Miami River won’t open for boaters from 10 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. New Year’s Eve and then again from 12:15 a.m. to 1 a.m. to help speed the flood of roadway traffic heading to and from the Countdown Miami 2026 celebration in downtown’s Bayfront Park, the Coast Guard notes. The short break opening the bridge for navigation will come amidst the midnight fireworks display that will illuminate the skies.
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