Chef Yasu Tanaka is set to open an eight-seat omakase counter called YASU Omakase in the Miami Design District. The restaurant, a collaboration between Tanaka and chef Raymond Li, will be located at 151 Northeast 41st Street and occupies a 904-square-foot space. According to the tenant’s announcement, Spicy Hospitality Group, led by Andre Sakhai, will open the restaurant on Wednesday. This follows Spicy Hospitality’s recent opening of Le Specialità , a Milanese trattoria, in the same district late last year.
The property where YASU Omakase will operate is owned by Miami Design District Associates. This group is a partnership that includes Dacra, L Catterton Real Estate, and Brookfield.
In another development, Kitchen + Kocktails By Kevin Kelley will launch in Wynwood at 2838 Northwest Second Avenue this Saturday. The Southern soul food restaurant will take up an 8,000-square-foot space. Kevin Kelley has previously opened six other locations of Kitchen + Kocktails in cities such as Atlanta, Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. The Wynwood building is owned by Thor Equities of New York.
Downtown Boca Raton will see two new restaurants at the mixed-use Aletto project: Amal (Lebanese cuisine) with a pre-leased area of 10,600 square feet and Sofia (Italian fine dining) with 4,500 square feet. INK Entertainment—headed by Charles Khabouth and Danny Soberano—will operate both venues. Colliers’ Jonathan Carter and Dave Preston represented Compson Associates in the leasing process.
The Aletto project itself is being developed through a partnership involving Boca Raton-based Compson (led by Robert D’Angelo and Carl Klepper Jr.), North American Development Group from West Palm Beach (led by CEO Jeff Preston), and jeweler Alfredo Aletto. It consists of two ten-story buildings with a total of 140,000 square feet designated for office, retail, and hospitality uses.
A new seafood option has also opened at Downtown Doral: FreshCo. Fish Market & Grill now operates from a 2,900-square-foot location at 8455 Northwest 53rd Street. Led by Mario Palazon—a Key West native—FreshCo also has another branch in Kendall. Downtown Doral is being developed by Codina Partners under Armando Codina and Ana-Marie Codina. Plans are underway for an additional 25,000 square feet of retail space in Downtown Doral; UHealth has already pre-leased some of this space for medical services including eye care and rehabilitation.
In downtown Miami’s office market news, Aby Rosen’s RFR announced it secured 42,000 square feet in leases at its tower located at 100 Biscayne Boulevard. French luxury conglomerate LVMH renewed its lease for five floors (34,000 square feet) over seven years for operations related to Hublot watches and LVMH Perfumes & Cosmetic divisions. Independence Pet Holdings leased an additional 8,000 square feet for ten years.
RFR acquired the building for $81.1 million in 2022; since then occupancy has increased from 60 percent to 92 percent with twenty-two new tenants added—including The B100M & Shade chef collective occupying about 5,000 square feet.
Representatives involved in these deals included Cameron Tallon and Eric Groffman from CBRE as well as AJ Camhi and Rob Weller from RFR representing landlords; Luciana Carvalho acted on behalf of LVMH while Geoffrey Kreiss and Iker Belauste from JLL represented Independence Pet Holdings.
Skyline Consulting Group recently leased approximately 26,600 square feet at Genting’s office properties within Miami’s Arts & Entertainment District at 1501 Biscayne Boulevard. Colliers’ Kevin Gonzalez and Ana Paula represented landlord Resorts World Omni (an affiliate of Malaysia-based Genting), while Nickel Goeseke from Cervera Real Estate acted for the tenant.
Genting acquired this property as part of a larger site purchase totaling $236 million back in 2011 but did not proceed with plans to develop a casino due to licensing issues. Recently Skilled Trades College from Canada signed a lease for about 30,000 square feet at the same building; it plans to begin operations later this summer.
