Robert Rivani has added another recognizable chunk of South Beach real estate to his portfolio: the eight-story building that once housed the celebrity magnet China Grill. The acquisition puts the developer behind a glass-block landmark with offices, retail and a familiar Miami nightlife backstory. It also arrives as Rivani is pushing a much larger expansion next to Lincoln Road.
Rivani's namesake firm bought 404 Washington Avenue, an approximately 61,000-square-foot office and retail building, according to The Real Deal. The sale price was not disclosed, although BridgeInvest provided a $29.5 million acquisition loan, working out to roughly $484 per square foot. The tenant lineup includes HaSalon on the ground floor, a Marriott Vacation Club sales gallery and offices for Ocean Drive magazine, Appaloosa Management, Universal Music Group, 26North and other companies. Dominion Partners LP, which is affiliated with the Trump Group, had owned the property since 1999 after paying $13.8 million for it.
A Glass-Block Landmark Changes Hands
The property has long operated as a hybrid South Beach asset rather than a restaurant-only destination. A city-filed assessment identifies an eight-story, multi-tenant office building completed in 1995, with a parking garage and roughly 60,000 square feet of rentable space, according to Miami Beach records. Its distinctive architecture helped make the building recognizable even after China Grill moved on.
Rivani's Bigger South Beach Bet Heads To Voters
The purchase lands as Rivani works to expand his flagship property at 1691 Michigan Avenue. Earlier reporting by The Real Deal said the roughly $50 million plan would remove 250 parking spaces, add 47,000 square feet of office space, create three rooftop padel courts and include a members-club restaurant. Miami Beach commissioners approved sending the proposal to voters in a November 3 referendum, with the deal also offering the city at least $500,000 in additional annual rent and $1.5 million in public benefits.
China Grill Is Back, Just Not Here
The old restaurant's South Beach chapter is over, but the China Grill name recently returned to the region at Bal Harbour Shops after a 14-year hiatus, the Miami Herald reported. The original South Beach location opened in 1995 and closed in 2012, while Eater Miami documented its role as one of the restaurants that helped define the area's early upscale dining boom.
For South Beach, Rivani's purchase is a neat piece of neighborhood symbolism: a building once associated with A-list dinners and late-night spectacle now joins a growing portfolio built around offices, retail and ambitious redevelopment. Whether 404 Washington Avenue eventually gets a new identity under its latest owner remains to be seen, but the ownership change itself is already a notable shift for one of the neighborhood's most recognizable addresses.
