April 5 2017 | Aventura firm closes on $60M Jungle Island deal, plans new attractions this summer

Aventura-based ESJ Capital Partners has closed on the $60 million lease transfer of Jungle Island, and plans to begin soon on its multimillion-dollar renovation of the Watson Island attraction. 

Bern Levine sold the lease for the 18-acre park to ESJ, a deal that has been months in the making. It includes the assumption of about $45 million of existing park debt to the city of Miami, Miami-Dade County and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and to a private lender, Arnaud Sitbon, ESJ’s president and co-founder, said.