🏠 News From Your Neighborhood
Miami, FL
A day in the life of Robert Rivani, a 34-year-old real-estate mogul with $750M in deals who left LA to invest in Miami
Robert Rivani got a taste for business flipping shoes as a teenager in his hometown of Los Angeles.
At first, he said, he sold his own Air Jordan and Nike shoes to just afford other shoes, but when business took off, he was making $10,000 a month before he could legally drink. He dropped out of high school in the 11th grade. At 18 years old, Rivani said he was approached to sell his shoe collection for over $150,000 and he took it.
“The hustle came young because my family wasn’t wealthy or rich by any means, and I wanted to be able to afford nicer things in life,” Rivani, now 34, told Business Insider. “The only way for me to go about getting that done was by making it on my own.”
He started working in property management, helping run buildings in Los Angeles, and has stayed in real estate ever since. He specializes in buying more dated buildings, from restaurants to offices, and revamping them.
“I consider myself somewhat of an artist when it comes to designing the properties,” he said. “Painting a building a certain way or making it more aesthetically pleasing, from the facade or the landscaping, and then being able to have tenants buy into the vision. It was an amazing thing to turn around these dilapidated properties into something special or unique.”
Rivani left California in 2022 to make his mark in Miami, where he’s grown his real-estate portfolio.
His investment group, Black Lion, has a portfolio of restaurants, office buildings, and mixed-use buildings in South Florida totaling 500,000 square feet of space owned.
His hospitality real-estate investment firm has completed $750 million in transactions, he said.
In April, he paid $62.5 million for a building in Miami Beach with stores at its base and offices above. He plans to renovate the interior and exterior and rebrand it at The Rivani. So far, West Elm and Williams Sonoma are retail tenants.
“To buy my own office building at 34 years old for 60-some-odd million with no investors or no partners was a huge milestone in my career,” Rivani said. “It was a dream of mine since I was a kid to have that and then also have the building named with my last name.”
1Ten Media
Rivani is also known for his California home — a Beverly Hills castle inspired by “Harry Potter” and “Game of Thrones,” including a $50,000 replica of the latter franchise’s iron throne — which he sold for $22 million in 2023.
Rivani now lives in a 9,000-square-foot mansion in Miami. He let Business Insider take a peek inside a typical day, and described how he sets his life up for success.
5:30 a.m.
Although Rivani left California for South Florida, he still sticks to his West-Coast rituals and wakes up around 5:30 a.m. or 6 a.m. While working in California, he still had properties to worry about on the East Coast, so he had to be up early to stay efficient. Now it’s just a habit.
“I get anxiety if I sleep until 8 a.m. or 9 a.m.,” Rivani told BI. “I feel like I’m missing things. I feel like I’m being disrespectful.”
6 a.m.
Once awake, Rivani immediately spends 30 minutes to an hour catching up on emails he didn’t get to the night before and researching current market trends. He also takes time to meditate and visualize what’s ahead in the day.
Around 7 a.m. every morning he has tea with his wife, Krystal.
Anna Orsborn
“I can’t stress how important it is to have a healthy, stable marriage when you’re trying to do what you do in real estate because you’re always so busy 24/7,” he said. “I make sure I spend quality time with her in the morning.”
8 a.m.
Rivani usually hits the gym in the morning for about an hour.
“I’m a big, big believer in going to the gym at least four to five days a week — or at least staying active, whether that’s hitting weights or playing paddle or tennis or physical therapy to keep my body,” he said. “As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that without your health, there’s no wealth.”
9 a.m.
Rivani leaves his home in Miami to his office in Miami Beach — which can take up to 45 minutes depending on traffic. Even that 45-minute drive is valuable time, so his personal assistant or wife drives while Rivani texts and takes calls.
“I’d rather not text and be on phone calls,” he said. “A lot of the good old residential brokers do, and I see them on their phone. I’d rather be safe than sorry.”
10 a.m.
Rivani is a believer in intermittent fasting and has his first meal, usually a protein shake, at 10 a.m.
His next meal won’t come until dinner.
“I’m a big fan of intermittent fasting, so that’s why I decided to drink tea versus other drinks because I fast for 14 to 16 hours every single day,” he said. “I won’t eat any food or have any special breakfast routine.”
1 p.m.
On Mondays, Rivani is usually slammed with a gauntlet of meetings from the legal team, to the construction team, to designer meetings, so he’s usually in the office from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Throughout his meetings he’ll meet with his legal team and go over the status of pending deals. Meetings with the construction team checking in to see where they’re at with bids on new projects and ensuring current projects are on track. He’ll have interior design meetings to go over renderings for projects and help with furniture selection.
However, he’s a little more active every other day of the week. Tuesday through Friday, Rivani meets with tenant companies, potential vendors, and contractors.
Rivani has the luxury of having restaurants, including Delilah Miami, as tenants and can host multiple meetings in one location instead of bouncing around Miami.
Michael Timzil Nio
“I’ll set back-to-back meetings at one of my restaurant properties where I’ll just have people coming there,” he said. “So I try to be as efficient with my time. I’m never lapping the city to go to a meeting and going to another meeting — that’s just an inefficient use of my time.”
7 p.m.
About 65% of the time, Rivani eats dinner at home, he said.
“My wife loves to cook, and if I decide to eat out too much she’ll kill me,” he said. “On the weekends, that’s when we’re going out and having dinners. I’ll be having dinners much later than that, unfortunately.”
After dinner, Rivani winds down by watching TV for about an hour — he’s on his third watch of the History Channel’s Viking-age drama “Vikings,” he said.
Rivani said that because of the nature of the job, he’s still fielding calls up until bedtime.
“There’s no cutoff,” he said. “There are times when I’m talking to people right up until bed. I had a really bad habit where I would leave my phone on at night. But now it’s on silent and I don’t pick up anyone’s call. Once it gets to 9 o’clock-ish, my phone just goes on silent and time’s up.”
9 p.m.
It’s time for bed.
The sister of a high-ranking Cuban official is now in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody after she was arrested in Miami on Thursday, the latest move in an escalating pressure campaign against Cuba’s ruling party and its leaders.
A photo released by ICE Homeland Security Investigations shows Adys Lastres Morera being taken away in Miami, with HSI calling her “a deportable lawful permanent resident whose presence poses a threat to the United States and undermines American foreign policy interests.”
Her sister, Ania Guillermina Lastres Morera, is the executive president of GAESA, a business conglomerate operated by the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces.
“They have a private military company named Gaesa who’s sitting on $18 billion of assets, and not a penny of that transfers over to the state budget. Not a penny of that goes over to help the people of Cuba. Not one cent,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said.
Gaesa is a business conglomerate operated by the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces, and it’s even more powerful than the island’s communist party.
GAESA controls hotels, gas stations, supermarkets, currency exchange, marinas, real estate and many more entities on the island.
U.S. officials estimate that GAESA, which is a private company, controls 40% or more of Cuba’s economy.
“GAESA wields such immense power that the Cuban government, the government led by Miguel Díaz-Canel, Manuel Marrero, and others, must ask GAESA for the resources needed to manage the country. And GAESA provides them if it so chooses,” said investigative journalist Mario Penton of Marti Noticias, who focuses on covering Cuba.
In March, Marti Noticias published a report detailing Adys Lastres Morera’s alleged association with investment companies.
“Something that strikes us as particularly noteworthy is that Adys Lastres Morera arrived in the United States in 2023, having been petitioned by her son, U.S. citizen Ernesto Carvajal Lastres,” Penton said. “And immediately thereafter, her name appeared associated as a manager at Santa Elena Investments and Remas Investments, companies dedicated to real estate investments in Florida.”
Penton said shortly after his report became public, everything related to those real estate investment companies was wiped from the internet.
Rubio said he terminated Adys Lastres Morera’s permanent resident status, posting to X, “There will be nowhere on this earth, much less in our country – where foreign nationals who threaten our national security can live lavishly.”
Adys Lastres Morera’s son said over the phone Thursday that he’s in crisis mode, trying to figure out where his mom is and why she was detained.
“I am not entirely clear on how Marco Rubio can have the authority to revoke residency without going through a court process,” he said.
Adys Lastres Morera’s son said he’s a U.S. citizen and has been living in the U.S. for 12 years. He’s currently looking for an attorney who can take his mother’s case.
SOUTH MIAMI, Fla. — A 50-year-old man was arrested Wednesday, nearly a week after he followed a woman who had just left a gym in Miami’s Brickell neighborhood and then exposed himself to her while she was stopped at an intersection in South Miami, authorities said.
Leer en español
According to an arrest report from the South Miami Police Department, the victim told police that just after leaving the gym last Friday, she immediately noticed that she was being followed by a gray Tesla Model Y.
“The vehicle continued following the victim southbound on S. Dixie Highway while the driver attempted to gain her attention,” a police officer wrote in the arrest report.
The driver, later identified by police as Rogerio Miranda De Souza, of Pinecrest, was also “brake checking” her “in a manner that could have caused a collision,” the report stated.
Police said the victim was stopped near the intersection of South Dixie Highway and Southwest 70th Street when Miranda De Souza drove extremely close to the driver’s side of her vehicle, at which time she noticed his pants were lowered, exposing his genitals, and he was stroking his penis while making direct eye contact with her.
The victim provided detectives with the vehicle’s license plate number and a physical description of the suspect.
Police said she later identified Miranda De Souza in a photo lineup.
He was arrested Wednesday on a charge of indecent exposure.
As of Thursday morning, Miranda De Souza was being held at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on a $1,000 bond.
“Investigators have since learned that a neighboring law enforcement agency is conducting a separate investigation involving the same subject under similar circumstances,” a news release from SMPD stated. “Based on the ongoing investigation and the similarities between the incidents, detectives believe there may be additional victims who have not yet reported their encounters to law enforcement.”
Anyone with information about this investigation, or who believes they may have been victimized by Miranda De Souza is asked to call the South Miami Police Department or Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at 305-471-8477.
Copyright 2026 by WPLG Local10.com – All rights reserved.
A Manchester United veteran is closing in on a deal to join another soccer great in the MLS.
Brazilian star Casemiro is expected to reach a deal with Lionel Messi-led Inter Miami after he revealed he would depart Man United this summer after his contract ends, according to multiple reports.
The addition of Casemiro, who was just named to Brazil’s squad for the 2026 World Cup, would bolster an already star-studded lineup for the defending MLS Cup champs, headlined by Messi, Luis Suárez and Rodrigo De Paul.
Casemiro would join Inter Miami as a free agent during the MLS summer transfer window, which runs from July 13 to Sept. 2, according to ESPN. Miami is the Brazilian’s top choice.
The LA Galaxy and Saudi Arabia’s Al Ittihad also reportedly expressed interest in trying to lure Casemiro to their respective clubs.
Since Inter Miami does not have a Designated Player spot available on its roster, Casemiro’s contract will be less than $2 million for this season, barring one of the club’s three DPs doesn’t leave over the summer.
Inter Miami will also need to negotiate an agreement with the Galaxy, which holds Casemiro’s MLS discovery rights
The mechanism allows for a club to put a player on its discovery list, which is limited to five players, in order to get priority rights to negotiate with them in order to sign them.
According to The Athletic, no agreement has been reached between Inter Miami and the Galaxy regarding compensation for his discovery rights.
The news of the likely signing comes while the club has been in the middle of a spat with some of its most diehard fans, who protested over the lack of recognition during Inter Miami’s 2-0 win over Portland.
La Familia, the club’s collective of supporters’ groups, staged an 84-minute silent protest before breaking out in a chant demanding recognition from Inter Miami.
The protest overshadowed what Inter Miami’s first win at its new home field, but the Miami Herald reported that club leadership was set to meet with members of La Familia on Wednesday.
Miami next plays Philadelphia on Sunday in the last game before the World Cup break.
-
Lifestyle19 minutes ago‘Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu’ may not be the way : Pop Culture Happy Hour
-
Technology31 minutes agoAnker’s new earbuds’ call quality is ridiculously good
-
World37 minutes agoUS arrests sister of powerful Cuban official over alleged ties to communist regime
-
Politics43 minutes agoRep. Tom Kean Jr. says he expects to return to Congress ‘in the next couple of weeks’ after missing 100 votes
-
Health49 minutes agoFinding the sleep ‘sweet spot’ could help you live longer, study suggests
-
Sports55 minutes agoKnicks crush Cavaliers in Game 2, take commanding 2-0 lead in series behind Josh Hart’s career night
-
Technology1 hour agoMeta AI launches private Incognito Chat
-
Business1 hour agoOlder AC and fridge chemicals amp up climate change. Trump just rolled back limits on them
