South Florida has lengthy been a magnet for New York actual property gamers. And when most New Yorkers make a transfer on the regional market, they do it in type: With plenty of ballyhoo in hopes that even the smallest offers and tasks grow to be the speak of the city.
The Damaghis will not be most New Yorkers.
The Nice Neck household has amassed developable websites throughout South Florida. Whereas a few of its investments have surpassed these of New York’s actual property royalty, the household’s offers have remained clandestine.
“They’ve some actually phenomenal property,” a supply mentioned. “However some folks simply wish to hold it quiet.”
The Damaghis — made up of husband-and-wife Nasser and Shahnaz Damaghi and their youngsters Nader, Kambiz and Babak Damaghi — aren’t full-time actual property gamers. Nasser and his sons based paper merchandise and private care gadgets producer First High quality Enterprises in 1988, which has grown to make use of greater than 4,000 staff a minimum of seven services throughout the U.S. and Canada.
Actual property is extra of a facet gig. The Damaghis have paid $182.2 million throughout 15 offers for developable land in line with a data evaluation by The Actual Deal.
TRD recognized the household in November because the consumers who dropped $50.8 million on 2.7 acres south of Brightline’s MiamiCentral downtown passenger practice station by means of sources aware of the deal. State data for the restricted legal responsibility firm that made the acquisition don’t explicitly tie the Damaghis to the deal. Neither the household’s identify nor addresses for First High quality’s places of work or one of many household’s Nice Neck properties are listed within the filings. However the data do record one particular person of curiosity: Moshe Oppenheim.
Seems, Oppenheim is the clue to the Damaghis’ different holdings.
Muzzled
9 entities registered to Oppenheim — the household’s longtime legal professional — purchased nearly all of the properties from 2019 to 2022.
The Damaghis are behind the offers, in line with a number of sources, although nobody wished to talk on the file and even in any respect, citing the household’s strict directions to maintain them off the radar. ”Actual robust” to speak concerning the household, one supply mentioned; they’re “very non-public,” others stored repeating.
Although reluctant, some did budge, offered they continue to be nameless. They described the household’s actual property play as a “long-term generational funding.” One other supply revealed that the purchases had been all money — certainly, no mortgages are recorded on the true property. And others mentioned the Damaghis have looked for extra South Florida investments as not too long ago as final yr.
In Fort Lauderdale’s booming Flagler Village neighborhood, the household owns practically 5 acres on three websites: land on the northeast nook of Northwest Flagler Drive and Second Road, on the southeast nook of Second Road and Northwest First Avenue, and instantly west of the federal courthouse at 299 East Broward Boulevard.
South of there, they’ve amassed the block fronting the New River on the northeast nook of South Andrews Avenue and Southeast Fifth Road. Additionally they personal close by parking tons and small business buildings, that are seemingly candidates for redevelopment.
However the household’s first funding was in Miami in 2013 once they purchased a full metropolis block of land in Edgewater, between Northeast thirty second and thirty third streets, alongside the east facet of Biscayne Boulevard. That is the one non-concealed deal, because the buying entity lists Kambiz Damaghi in state data.
Their different Miami web site is the downtown land south of the Brightline station, which has approval for a pair of mixed-use residential towers with 2,007 items and spanning 4 million sq. ft.
The household has chosen a number of parcels for growth and are “assessing the alternatives” however can’t share extra particulars till the tasks are launched, Oppenheim wrote in an emailed response to an inventory of questions.
For the Damaghis, stealth mode is nothing new, as they’ve been opaque about their non-public lives. First High quality’s web site and LinkedIn say a lot concerning the firm’s historical past however make no point out of its house owners. As a substitute, tying the household to the corporate is extra simply accomplished by studying
articles printed in 2019 and final yr by Pennsylvania’s The Specific Lock Haven about Kambiz Damaghi’s speeches to the native chamber of commerce.
Temple Israel of Nice Neck’s annals additionally present the Damaghis have been embedded within the area’s Jewish neighborhood. In 2012, the temple’s The Voice publication introduced a bar mitzvah for Nader and Mitra Damaghi’s son. Kambiz Damaghi has additionally been listed on the board of trustees for the Sephardic Heritage Alliance for 2017-18.
By means of Oppenheim, the household agreed to offer just a little about its background for this story, and mentioned they’re doing it expressly for the sake of accuracy. In 1978, Nasser and Shahnaz left Iran in the course of the revolution with their sons to flee persecution. Though data point out the Damaghi household contains quite a few cousins, uncles and different family, it’s Nader, 61, Kambiz, 59, and Babak, 53, who lead First High quality as co-CEOs — and who’re shopping for up South Florida actual property
One factor the household hasn’t hidden so properly is its penchant for palatial properties in Nice Neck’s prosperous Kings Level.
In 2004, Babak and his spouse, Farhnaz, paid $12.8 million for the late comic Alan King’s dwelling at 40 Shore Drive, in line with data. Fronting Manhasset Bay, the home was inbuilt 1926 in a mix of Tudor and gothic kinds, and by 2012, the couple had changed it with a Colonial-style châteauan measuring greater than 15,000 sq. ft. They offered it in 2017 for $22 million, data present.
Nader and Mitra had been close by neighbors. They paid $7.1 million in 2002 for the ten Shore Drive manse, which 4 years later they changed, additionally with a Colonial-style fort that spans greater than 10,000 sq. ft on 2 bayfront acres. The couple offered it in 2017 for $20 million, file present.
As for Kambiz and Haleh’s abode at 26 Dock Lane, they offered it in 2017 for $14 million,
however not earlier than litigation gave a glimpse of their way of life within the dwelling totaling greater than 14,000 sq. ft.
The couple had a 14-person workers of housekeepers, groundskeepers, cooks, private assistants and safety, in line with a 2013 lawsuit filed towards them by former property supervisor Christopher Marconi.
Marconi claimed he was illegally fired 4 months in on the job partly over elevating subject with Haleh’s private assistant’s allegedly racist remarks to family workers. In a personal assembly, Kambiz instructed Marconi to “again off” his push to get the assistant fired, insinuating that Kambiz and the assistant had been “sexually intimate” and she or he had texts that “‘might be perceived’ as inappropriate by Haleh,” in line with the lawsuit. Marconi, who couldn’t be reached for remark, misplaced, although his implication of an extramarital affair struck a chord with Kambiz.
“That may be very, very unsuitable and inappropriate to even counsel,” Kambiz mentioned throughout a deposition, calling the allegation “shameful,” “despicable” and saying it places his “honor in query”.
New M.O.?
When Miki Naftali and a accomplice dropped $40.5 million for a Miami Worldcenter growth web site final March, information releases flooded journalists’ inboxes with bulletins for a pair of supertall residential towers. Namdar Group, additionally primarily based in New York, additionally didn’t draw back from bulletins about its plan for a 41-story and a 43-story house towers, additionally in downtown, final August.
However when TRD reached out to the Damaghis in November about their buy of the event web site south of Brightline’s station, a member of the household vehemently denied they had been the consumers and didn’t wish to present his first identify.
Whether or not the Damaghis’ rising presence in South Florida, the place producing buzz over actual property offers is simply as a lot a part of the sport because the precise funding, will push them to desert their mysterious methods stays to be seen.
They’ve, nevertheless, proven indicators that they might be rethinking their long-held modus operandi.
In a comply with up name with Oppenheim, he described the Damaghis’ settlement to answer TRD’s questions in an e mail as “a primary.”
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