Wynwood Jungle, a Full-Block Retail Property, Traded for $25.73 Million

Newmark arranged the $25.73 million sale of Wynwood Jungle, a 38,946-square-foot retail property at 51 NW 23rd Street. Dallas-based Tabani Group bought it from Robert Rivani's Black Lion Investment Group.

The site is what makes this interesting. It occupies a 0.7-acre block-through parcel spanning an entire city block, from Northwest 23rd Street to Northwest 24th Street, between Northwest 2nd Avenue and North Miami Avenue. Full-block control in Wynwood is rare and it is the reason an out-of-state buyer paid up.

The buyer is not buying the rent roll

The property was originally completed in 2016 and was substantially renovated and repositioned in 2023 with more than $1 million in capital improvements. Current tenants named in the release include The Salty, Sora, Surinitea, Häagen-Dazs and 27 Club Coffee. But the line that explains the price is the entitlement: existing zoning permits the potential development of up to 116 residential units or 234 lodging units.

Two Wynwood numbers worth keeping

• 20 million visitors in 2025. Stated in the Newmark release as the district's visitor count for the year.
• More than 3,000 residential units delivered since 2022. Wynwood has already absorbed a decade of housing in four years.
• An additional 4,000 units expected through 2028. That is the number I would build any Wynwood rent projection around.
• Newmark's team. Eric Williams, Conor Lalor, James Sharpe V and Andrei Larion.

One housekeeping note on the figure. The release as republished shows $25.73 million in the body and rounds to $26 million in a key-facts box. Use $25.73 million.

My read

A Dallas group buying a full Wynwood block with 116 units of residential entitlement is not a retail trade. It is a land bank with income attached, and the exit is a tower. That should change how you think about ground-floor retail rents in that corridor, because a buyer underwriting future density does not need today's rent to pencil. For anyone leasing retail space in Wynwood, ask who owns your building and what the zoning allows on top of you before you invest in a build-out you need eight years to amortize. For residential buyers, 4,000 more units through 2028 in a neighborhood that has already delivered 3,000 since 2022 means supply, not scarcity, sets the price. What I cannot tell you: the closing date, the seller's basis, the occupancy percentage, or the in-place rent per square foot. None of that was disclosed.