Mana Common Founder and Chairman Moishe Mana talks to Fox News Digital about closing a record $1.1 billion deal with Citadel’s Ken Griffin that will transform a working-class neighborhood into a new Carnegie Mellon campus.
When Ken Griffin’s representatives first contacted real estate titan, visionary and billionaire Moishe Mana about purchasing the land he spent decades developing and manufacturing, Mana wasn’t entirely convinced.
“To be honest, they came knocking on my door, I didn’t ask for it. It wasn’t for sale,” Mana, founder and president of Mana Common, told Fox News Digital. “I had the vision. I made it happen…And then these guys walked up to my office and they told me they wanted to buy it – my property, Mana Wynwood. I looked at them, I said, ‘It’s not for sale.'”
“Where do you find 30 acres in the coolest neighborhood in America, if not the world? That’s priceless, that’s priceless,” he continued. “And across the board, I said, ‘Look, I have other properties, I have this, I have that.’ …But they mentioned it was educational…And they mentioned it was important to do, but they didn’t say the name. I didn’t know the name, but I thought it was from Ken Griffin… So (he’s) not going to do something small.”
“So I said ‘no’ and they left… I needed to digest it, it was very big for me to digest it, it’s a shock, in a way, and two days, three days, I slept on it, I woke up, I went to sleep with it… So, then I said to my people: ‘You know what, call them, let’s talk to them again.'”
KEN GRIFFIN DOUBLES IN FLORIDA WITH RECORD $3 BILLION GIFT CARNEGIE MELLON
On September 29, Mana completed the sale of approximately 30 acres in Wynwood to Citadel founder and CEO Ken Griffin for $1.1 billion, marking the largest land assembly transaction in Florida history. Mana began investing in Wynwood in 2009, during the Great Recession, acquiring a distressed warehouse for about $5 million and ultimately spending less than $70 million to build its Wynwood portfolio.
Together, Citadel CEO Ken Griffin and billionaire real estate titan Moishe Mana broke the Florida record for the most expensive land deal in history, at $1.1 billion. (Getty Images)
The land acquisition is part of Griffin’s broader commitment to Carnegie Mellon University, which includes a record $3 billion gift. The university says $2 billion will support the launch of Carnegie Mellon University in Miami, while $1 billion will support its Pittsburgh campus. This is the largest individual gift in the history of higher education.
The deal took almost three years from first contact to completion, Mana said, with the contract formally signed 18 months prior. The sold package will establish an entirely new campus for Carnegie Mellon University, transforming Miami from a tax-driven wealth migration destination to an international hub for higher education and technological research.
“Even though it was two and a half years, three years, the whole deal wasn’t about price. The price, once we sat in the room, they said, ‘Look, this is our budget and this is what we want to pay’…I said, you know what? Let’s do it…I think it’s a good cause, it’s going to change the future of South Florida, it’s going to change the future of America, basically, to have a This university in Miami will change the lives of thousands of young people, and the cost is far greater than the money,” Mana said.
Ken Griffin, CEO of Citadel, and Farnam Jahanian, President of Carnegie Mellon University, discuss Griffin’s $3 billion investment in the university to make it a mecca for artificial intelligence in higher education in a “special report.”
“I didn’t know who Ken was earlier, but what I learned, what I saw, was a guy who cares about education and human intelligence,” he said. “And for him, money is just a means to get things done. Ken is not married to his money.”
“He put Miami on the map. No matter what we did as people, you know, I had money, I was a billionaire before that, but not a billion the size of Ken Griffin. But he took Miami to a different level, to a platform where people really started to think of Miami as a financial center, as a cultural center.”
During Wynwood’s early transformations, Mana spent between $2 million and $3 million a year on street art, music festivals like III Points, and making Wynwood the heart of Art Basel each year. Despite skeptics claiming that real estate value is strictly dictated by lot size, Mana’s strategy has proven that neighborhood culture creates exponential financial returns.
“When you go south, I’ll go north. When you go east, I’ll go west. I don’t chase the crowd.”
“This isn’t my first investment where I’ve made this kind of money and this kind of investment. And actually, a reporter asked me two days ago, ‘Hey, Moishe, I talked to some developers and they told me the land is worth half of what it’s worth.’ I was laughing,” Mana recalls. “I was laughing at the ignorance of that statement, because it’s not the first time I always (say), ‘You value a building by its contents and the neighborhood it belongs to.'”
Mana likened Griffin’s willingness to deploy capital for civic and intellectual infrastructure to that of historic builders.
“We’re living in a historic time today. It’s a continuation of Henry Flagler,” Mana said. “We’re moving from a tourist destination to a true business, community and cultural destination… You know the Medici in Florence? We need Medici in this world. And Ken Griffin is a Medici.”
A Tesla Cybertruck is parked in front of a complex of modern buildings with walls covered in street art in the Wynwood neighborhood of Miami, Florida. | Getty Images
Mana retains more than 15 acres in Wynwood and will continue to oversee existing operations and events at Mana Wynwood for the foreseeable future, according to Mana Common. Next, he says he’s focusing on downtown Miami’s Flagler district, where Mana Common says he’s purchased about 80 properties for about $600 million over the past 11 years as part of an effort to build a tech and fashion ecosystem connecting North and Latin America.
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“I want to focus on downtown. I want to focus on building the community, building the tech community, building the fashion community, bringing the arts to the neighborhood, the schools to the neighborhoods,” the billionaire said.
“Every day people call me: ‘When are you building, when are you building, when are you building?’ Relax, we’ll build it, but we want to make the right buildings. We want to build the right neighborhood… and we will do it together. It’s the only downtown Miami.”
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