Inside Ken Griffin’s secret three-year negotiation for Florida’s largest real estate deal in history
Billionaire and visionary Moishe Mana speaks to Fox News Digital about how the $1.1B transaction came to be
Ken Griffin’s transformation of Miami’s Wynwood ‘is going to change the future of South Florida,’ Moishe Mana says
Mana Common founder and Chairman Moishe Mana speaks to Fox News Digital about striking a record-breaking $1.1 billion deal with Citadel’s Ken Griffin, which will turn a popular neighborhood into a new Carnegie Mellon campus.
When Ken Griffin's representatives first approached real estate titan, visionary and billionaire Moishe Mana about purchasing the very land he spent decades developing and crafting, Mana was not fully convinced.
"To be honest, they came and knocked on my door, I didn't solicit it. It was not for sale," Mana, the founder and chairman of Mana Common, told Fox News Digital. "I had the vision. I completed it… And then these guys walk to my office, and they tell me they want 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? It's priceless, there's no price to it," he continued. "And back and forth, I said, ‘Listen, I have other properties, I have this, I have that.’ … But they mentioned it's educational… And they mentioned it's important to do, but they didn't say the name. I didn't know the name, but I figured it came 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's a shock, kind of, and two days, three days, slept on it, woke up, went to sleep with it… So, then I said to my people, ‘You know what, call them, let's talk to them again.’"
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On Sept. 29, Mana closed the sale of approximately 30 acres in Wynwood to Citadel founder and CEO Ken Griffin for $1.1 billion — marking the largest land assemblage transaction in Florida history. Mana began investing in Wynwood in 2009 during the Great Recession, acquiring a distressed warehouse for approximately $5 million and eventually spending less than $70 million to assemble his Wynwood portfolio.
Together, Citadel CEO Ken Griffin and billionaire real estate titan Moishe Mana broke a Florida record for the most expensive land transaction 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 Miami, while $1 billion will support its Pittsburgh campus. The gift is the largest individual donation in the history of higher education.
The deal took nearly three years from initial contact to close, Mana explained, with the contract formally executed 18 months prior. The sold assemblage will establish a brand-new campus for Carnegie Mellon University, transforming Miami from a destination for tax-driven wealth migration into an international hub for higher education and technological research.
"Although it lasted two-and-a-half, three years, the whole deal, it was not a question of price. The price, once we [sat] in the room, and they said, ‘Listen, this is our budget and that's 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 the Americas, basically, to have such a university sitting in Miami. It's going to change thousands of young people’s lives, and the cost is much greater than money," Mana said.
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"I didn't know who Ken [was] earlier, but what I learned, what I saw, is a guy that cares for education and cares for human intelligence," he said. "And money for him 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 this, but not Ken Griffin-size billion. But he brought Miami to a different level, to a platform where people start really looking at Miami as a financial hub, as a cultural hub."
During Wynwood's early transformation, Mana spent $2 million to $3 million annually on street art, music festivals like III Points and making Wynwood the heart of Art Basel each year. Despite skeptics claiming real estate values are strictly dictated by land size, Mana’s strategy proved that neighborhood culture creates exponential financial returns.
"When you go south, I go north. When you go east, I'll go west. I don't chase the crowd."
"This is not my first investment that I made this kind of money and this kind of investment. And actually, a reporter asked me two days ago, 'Hey, Moishe, I spoke with some developers and they tell me that the land is worth half of the value of this.' I was laughing," Mana recalled. "I was laughing at how ignorant this statement could be, because this is not the first time that I always [say], 'You value a building by its content and the neighborhood that it belongs to.'"
Mana compared Griffin’s willingness to deploy capital for civic and intellectual infrastructure to that of historic builders.
"We are experiencing [a] historic time today. This is the continuation of Henry Flagler," Mana said. "We’re turning from a tourist destination to a real business, community and culture destination… You know the Medici in Florence? We need Medicis in this world. And Ken Griffin is a Medici."
A Tesla Cybertruck is parked in front of a modern building complex with walls covered in street art in the Wynwood neighborhood of Miami, Florida. | Getty Images
Mana is retaining more than 15 acres in Wynwood and will continue overseeing operations and existing events at Mana Wynwood for the foreseeable future, according to Mana Common. Next, he says he is focusing on downtown Miami's Flagler District, where Mana Common says he has purchased about 80 properties for approximately $600 million over the past 11 years as part of an effort to build a tech and fashion ecosystem connecting North America 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 arts to the neighborhood, school[s] to the neighborhoods," the billionaire said.
"People every day call me up — ‘When are you building, when are you building, when are you building?’ Relax, we will build it, but we want to do the right buildings. We want to build the right neighborhood… and we will get it done together. It's the only downtown that Miami has."