Riviera preparatory buys site for school
Brian Bandell | February 15, 2010
The owners of the Riviera Preparatory School bought a 10-acre site in Miami-Dade County’s Kendall area for $9.5 million. They plan to construct a 100,000-square-foot school there.
The seller was Jesus Fellowship, a nonprofit with a religious building on the property. The site is on the southeast corner of Southwest 96th Street and Southwest 87th Avenue.
Mark Meland, a partner with law firm Meland Budwick, P.A., which represented the buyer in the deal, said the new school would serve students in sixth through 12th grades. Operating since 1950, the for-profit Riviera Preparatory has about 425 students in pre-kindergarten through eighth grade on a campus 4.6 miles away.
The middle school would move to the new campus once the $20 million construction project is completed in August 2011, Meland noted. Construction should start in May.
“They purchased the land without a mortgage and have banks competing for the construction loan,” Meland said. “They’ve been wanting to do this for a while, and they finally found the right piece of property.”