Genting Americas refinances Miami's Omni Center with $500M loan

Genting Americas refinanced Miami's Omni Center with a $500 million loan, with Wells Fargo serving as administrative agent for a group of lenders, per public mortgage documents cited by Commercial Observer.

The 1.5 million-square-foot complex runs between 1501 and 1645 Biscayne Boulevard, just north of the MacArthur and Venetian causeway entrances and near the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts. Built in the 1970s, it holds 435,000 square feet of office space, a 527-room Hilton hotel and a 2,500-spot parking garage; Omni International Mall, inside the building, closed in 2000.

Genting paid $180 million for the Omni Center in 2011 through foreclosure and $236 million the same year for the adjoining 15-acre site, so the new loan exceeds the $416 million it spent on the two parcels combined. Spread over the whole complex, $500 million works out to roughly $333 per square foot — arithmetic on the building's total area, not an appraisal, since the coverage gives no current valuation.

Leasing in the past year brought Planet Fitness into 26,000 square feet of office space and consulting firm Skyline Financial into 25,420 square feet. Other tenants include a U.S. State Department passport office and Keypoint Academy, a private grade school. The coverage does not give occupancy, the loan's term or its pricing, nor the balance it retires.

The refinancing arrives three years after Genting failed to sell the 15-acre site next door for $1.2 billion. A joint venture led by David Martin's Terra went under contract in 2023 for the waterfront assemblage, which excluded the Omni Center, in what would have been one of the country's priciest land acquisitions; the deal fell apart as the developer struggled to secure financing. Genting had demolished the Miami Herald headquarters building on that site for a casino that never materialized after it failed to gain a gambling license. The land remains mostly vacant.

Terra's Bay Harbor Islands office loan of $183.8 million was $54.2 million smaller than the $238 million it retired, as this publication reported. Genting instead borrowed above what it paid for both parcels in 2011.