A corner retail site in the heart of Little Havana could offer an interesting path for a neighborhood-serving restaurant, café, market, or hybrid food concept.
Today’s Deepblocks Daily Deal is a corner retail site for sale in the heart of Little Havana.
The property sits at 16th Street and 22nd Avenue, within a residential neighborhood that could support a neighborhood-serving restaurant, café, market, or hybrid food concept.
The site is currently improved with a 1,626 SF supermarket and is being offered at $500,000.
The zoning is T4-O, which allows for food service, entertainment, and general commercial uses. That creates an interesting path for a small-format retail or restaurant redevelopment.
Explore the live Developer study here:
View the developer study
A Restaurant and Market Concept
One concept we looked at was a new Latin restaurant paired with a neighborhood supermarket.
Instead of treating the existing market use as something to replace entirely, the project could potentially lean into it.
The concept could combine prepared foods, groceries, café seating, and a restaurant component serving the surrounding residential base.
For a neighborhood like Little Havana, that type of hybrid format could be compelling if the economics, tenant strategy, and redevelopment timing all line up.
The Deal Sketch
For this preliminary deal sketch, we modeled the following assumptions:
- Site price: $500,000
- Existing building: 1,626 SF supermarket
- Potential new retail program: 4,000 SF
- Comparable lease range: $32/SF to $55/SF
- Modeled lease rate: $40/SF
- Estimated return on cost: 8.44%
At 4,000 SF and $40/SF, the project could generate approximately $160,000 in annual gross rent before vacancy, operating expenses, financing, tenant improvements, leasing costs, and other project-level assumptions.
On paper, that creates an interesting feasibility question: can a small-format retail or restaurant redevelopment deliver enough income to justify the acquisition and construction costs?
The Lease Wrinkle
There is one important wrinkle: the site has an existing lease through 2032.
That does not necessarily kill the opportunity, but it does change the strategy.
A buyer would need to understand the current lease terms, tenant flexibility, redevelopment timing, and whether the current operator could become part of the next concept.
In some cases, an existing tenant can be a constraint. In others, the tenant can become part of the redevelopment story.
For this site, that distinction matters.
The Big Questions
This deal raises several questions for restaurant operators, retail brokers, and Little Havana investors:
- Is $40/SF achievable for new retail at this corner?
- Would a restaurant operator want to pair with a small supermarket concept?
- Could the existing tenant become part of the redevelopment plan?
- Does the neighborhood density support a 4,000 SF food and retail program?
- Is this better as a ground-up restaurant, a market hall concept, or an adaptive reuse play?
The opportunity is not just about replacing an existing supermarket with a new retail building. It is about understanding whether the existing use, location, and neighborhood demand can be combined into a stronger food and retail concept.
What Would You Build Here?
Restaurant operators, retail brokers, and Little Havana investors — we would love your take.
Is this a Latin restaurant, a small market hall, an adaptive reuse project, or something else entirely?
The developer study is available below.
Explore the live Developer study here:
View the developer study
