Historic Downtowner restaurant gets new landlord

The Historic Downtowner, a restaurant offering patrons prime views of Fort Lauderdale’s New River, will be writing rent checks to a different landlord.

An investment firm this month paid $5.75 million for the Fort Lauderdale building that houses Downtowner.

But the restaurant and the other tenants in the 23,600-square-foot building at 400 and 408 S. Andrews Ave. need not worry about their immediate future, said Alejandro Bonet, managing partner of the ownership group, Linéaire Group 10 New River LLC.

“It generates good revenue,” Bonet said. “We love the location and the site, and we’re just going to hold onto it for the short and midterm and see what happens.”

Bonet said he and his group are investors — not developers. This is the firm’s first property in either Broward or Palm Beach counties, he said.

Lucille Amato, the restaurant’s office manager, said Downtowner’s operations will continue, though she does expect redevelopment of the site to occur at some point during the next few years.

The seller, Azorra Properties, bought the property in 2001 for $2.5 million, records show. director of Colliers.

The city will sell some of the parcels and possibly work with other entities on public-private partnerships, according to Krasnow.

“Real estate is not their core business,” Krasnow said of the city. “If there’s a way that they can partner with an expert in the field to help them monetize and maximize the value of underutilized assets, that money would be better used to improve the quality of life in the city.”

The first property to be sold isn’t even in the city. It’s a 24-acre industrial site at 4030 S. State Road 7 in Dania Beach. Fort Lauderdale acquired the parcel through eminent domain in the early 1980s, Krasnow said.

The minimum bid is $13.2 million cash. Sealed bids are due by 2 p.m. on Nov. 3. City commissioners could accept the best offer on Nov. 21.

Krasnow said he expects there will be plenty of interest in the site.

“It’s a large-scale industrial property in a really strong market with not a lot of land,” he said. gym, gathering areas, a pool, tennis and basketball courts and a playground. The community has seven lakes, and many of the homes are on cul-de-sacs, according to the builder.

The first residents are expected to move in by the summer of 2018.The sales center, at 980 Crestwood Blvd. North, is open seven days.

Last year, Lennar closed 26,563 homes nationwide, ranking second to DR Horton’s 41,652, according to Builder magazine. Lennar had $11 billion in revenue, while Austin, Texas-based DR Horton had $12.7 billion.

Staff researcher Barbara Hijek contributed to this report.

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