SoHo in the Sun: New York real estate developers flock to Miami in search of the next big neighborhood

A New York developer is making a big bet on a once-desolate but now artsy and up-and-coming part of Miami, plunking down almost $12 million for 27 apartments — and he thinks

he’ll turn a hefty profit when the neighborhood becomes the new SoHo.

Paying $327 per square-foot, the developer likes the short term appreciation in the

Midtown Miami neighborhood he compares to SoHo of the early 1990s where

artists scooped up lofts for $50,000. Those homes today are worth upwards of $3 million.

Saddled between the Design District that attracts luxury retailers Hermes, Celine, Louis

Vuitton, Dior Homme, Christian Louboutin, Prada and Cartier and the warehouse-heavy

Wynwood Art district area, Midtown has plots of land left to develop and a growing

demographic of young artists looking to pay less in home prices than South Beach, typically 

double in cost.