Midtown Miami Is On The Cusp Of Major Growth

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Hyde Suites and Residences Midtown Miami

Next month, a swanky new hotel will debut in Midtown Miami, signaling what’s likely to be the start of a transformation for the downtown Miami corridor that, until only last year, was a lodging desert.

The addition of a condo/hotel project, Hyde Suites and Residences Midtown Miami, speaks to the growth of Midtown, which sits between the trending neighborhoods of Wynwood and the Design District.

Until last year, the area had no hotels and only a smattering of motels, though it was growing as a retail and real estate destination. In the last eight years alone, the population of Midtown has increased by about 50 percent, according to the Miami Downtown Development Authority.

Hampton Inn & Suites Miami Midtown

Then in April 2017, a 151-room Hampton Inn opened at 3450 Biscayne Boulevard — the area’s first major hotel. This June, the 32-story Hyde will open, with 60 hotel suites and 410 luxury condos at 3401 NE First Ave. The project is the second condo/hotel for the Hyde brand, developed by The Related Group and hospitality company sbe, the team behind Hollywood Beach‘s 42-story Hyde. Dezer Development also worked on the Midtown Hyde.

“Midtown is a very interesting location,” said Carlos Rosso, president of the condominium development division at The Related Group. “It’s a really consolidated neighborhood with big sidewalks, with great ground for retail. Mid-priced shops and supermarkets make it a really nice neighborhood to live in. It’s why people have continued to move and buy in Midtown.”

They’ve started traveling there, too. According to the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau, which only started tracking visits to Midtown in 2015, nearly 4 percent of all visitors to Miami-Dade last year stopped in Midtown, the neighborhood’s highest figure yet. Its neighbors, Wynwood and the Design District, also saw growth. Nearly 17 percent of visitors went to Wynwood — almost twice as many as in 2016 — and 5.6 percent visited the Design District.

Location is a major draw for developers. Midtown offers travelers connectivity to downtown Miami and Miami Beach — but for a lower price. For the Hampton Inn, which has a year of being in Midtown under its belt, owner Bo Ashbel said those two factors are key to attracting visitors.

“It’s a very convenient place to stay. They are beginning to realize that there is a lot more to offer there and there is some pricing advantage, staying with us as opposed to staying in Brickell, which is quite pricier — and we have a brand new product,” Ashbel said. Rooms at the Hampton Inn in early June, for instance, start at $155.

Ashbel is betting on Midtown‘s success, so much so that he’s developing a second hotel, a 153-room AC Hotel by Marriott, which has already broken ground. It will open in fall 2019. Ashbel said other developers are in talks to build two or three more hotel projects in Midtown.

“What we are seeing already is a number of the neighboring properties to us, including those on our block, that are undergoing major renovations to reposition their own properties and upgrade them,” Ashbel said. “You are beginning to see the ripple effect. It reinforces the notion that this will become a legitimate submarket.”

The addition of the luxury Hyde will also play a major role. The development features condos between 760 and 1,868 square feet and a whole host of amenities, including on-demand housekeeping, a theater, a kids room, a state-of-the-art gym, tennis and bocce courts, and a heated pool and spa. On the ground level are 20,000 square feet of retail space.

The 32-story tower was designed by local firm Arquitectonica with interiors by David Rockwell, plus a curated selection of art from Mexican artists Bayrol Jimenez and Omar Barquet, Portuguese street artist Alexandre Farto and Danish artist Malene Landgreen.

Hyde has not yet announced the hotel’s room rates, but weekend rates in the Hollywood Beach Hyde in early June start at $263 a night. More than 94 percent of the residences at the Midtown property, which run from about $400,000 to $2 million, are already sold.

“We think that there are urban explorers that love hotels that are off the grid and we saw that this project had the right scale to appeal to them,” Rosso said.

 

Source: Miami Herald

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VIDEO: Massive Miami Worldcenter Project Finally Rises Downtown

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Source: Miami Herald

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Developer Unveils Plans For $300M Hotel/Condo Tower In Downtown Miami

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Billionaire Turkish developer Bekir Okan is launching plans for a $300 million, 70-story hotel and condo tower in downtown Miami.

Okan Tower will have a 294-room Hilton-branded hotel, 236 condo-hotel units, 153 condos, 64,000 square feet of Class A office space and a restaurant on the 67th floor. Okan Group just unveiled the project at an event at its 3,000-square-foot sales gallery in Istanbul.

“We felt it would be most strategic to start there,” said Daniel de la Vega of One Sotheby’s International Realty.

The developer will officially launch sales in Miami when the sales gallery opens Thursday at 542 North Miami Avenue.

“Construction is expected to begin later this year,” de la Vega said.

One Sotheby’s will handle residential sales of the building planned for 555 North Miami Avenue. Prices will start at $318,500 and range from 447 square feet to 1,245 square feet. Jerry Sanchez is the director of sales.

“The four duplex penthouses will range from 1,872 square feet to 2,142 square feet and from $1.9 million to $2.4 million,” de la Vega said.

Okan is targeting foreign investors for the residential units, and will build the tower with its own equity.

“Despite the slowdown in luxury condo sales, I am confident the units are priced competitively,” de la Vega said

And the developer is hoping that the tower will appeal to international investors “looking for value opportunities” who are out-priced by the glut of luxury condos on the market in Miami, founder Bekir Okan wrote in an email.

Competing projects downtown include YotelPad and Smart Brickell. Aria Development is developing the Yotel-branded tower, a 31-story building planned for 227 Northeast Second Avenue with prices ranging from $260,000 to $450,000 and units averaging 580 square feet. Smart Brickell will have condos priced from the low $300,000s to about $600,000, and sizes from 558 square feet to 1,117 square feet.

Amenities at Okan Tower will include a sky pool on the 70th floor, a Hammam spa, health and fitness center, outdoor lounge, a kids’ playroom, gourmet kitchen, movie theater, wine cellar and a cigar room, according to a press release. Behar Font & Partners designed the tower.

Okan Group was founded in 1972 by Bekir Okan, who has a home in Miami, where two of his children attended college, he said. His firm owns the Istanbul-based Okan University, which opened a campus in Dania Beach in 2015, and has invested in Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. Okan Tower will be the first real estate development in the United States for the company.

Property records show Miami 6th Street LLC, an Okan affiliate paid $18.1 million for the 36,000-square-foot development site in Miami, near the historic Central Baptist Church in 2017.

 

Source: The Real Deal

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How Will Sea Level Rise Affect Your Home? Miami Is Creating A Tool That Will Show You

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The looming impacts of climate change are increasingly raising questions about the future of Miami‘s real estate, particularly from residents who wonder what will happen to their property as the sea level rises.

Seeing a need for a user-friendly, visual platform where property owners can see what might happen to their land and how they can deal with future problems, Miami is receiving a $100,000 grant to develop a new tool the city hopes will help the average resident understand the risks and options for dealing with rising waters.

The city was awarded the money from Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Mayors Challenge, which grants dollars to cities to solve complex urban problems. In Miami‘s case, city officials want to wrangle various data sets together to create a prototype for an interactive tool that would allow property owners to understand their risks in the coming decades and see what different mitigation strategies might look like.

The city has a lofty goal of integrating data from different sources — sea rise projections, rainfall numbers, tidal measurements, analyzed alongside economic factors and effects of upgraded infrastructure — to construct a platform that can be shared freely with anyone. According to the grant application, Miami‘s administration hopes to build a platform that can be used across the region.

“We have the most assets at risk to storm and sea level rise related flooding than any other metropolitan area in the world,” reads Miami’s grant application. “However, our residents do not havea clear understanding of the risks related to sea level rise, particularly as it relates to their specific property, how they can mitigate those risks over time, and how to stay informed and engaged on city land use, code and infrastructure planning that may also mitigate those risks.”

Jane Gilbert, Miami‘s chief resilience officer, told the Miami Herald the goal is to provide the average person meaningful information in an easy-to-use format.

“The idea is as the city upgrades its infrastructure, it wants to inform residents and to help them think about what they can do and how they can prepare for sea level rise,” Gilbert said.

The private sector has already broached this territory through services that sell information and individualized assessments to property owners, but the city’s ambitions are broader. Gilbert and Michael Sarasti, chief innovation officer, envision a tool that would include projected economic impacts of sea rise, from changing real estate values to disappearing jobs, and a way to visualize the impact of pending legislation.

The $100,000 grant is meant to fund a prototype platform that can serve as the basis for a larger grant application later this year to complete development. For that larger, multimillion-dollar grant, Sarasti said Miami was encouraged to partner with Miami Beach, which received its own $100,000 Bloomberg grant in February for a similar project.

The Beach is working on a prototype that will focus on integrating meteorological and tidal predictions to reduce risks to people and property. Later this year, both cities plan to combine their efforts to vie for more dollars to develop a highly sophisticated program that will aid governments and private citizens in making decisions on how to prepare for sea level rise.

 

Source: Miami Herald

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VIDEO: Miami Developer Looks To The Future With Flying Carport

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Click on the above photo to view a video of just one of the latest high rises to join Miami’s skyline. Paramount Miami Worldcenter is planning a flying ‘sky port’.

 

Source: Deccan Chronicle

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82-Story Mixed-Use Tower Proposed For Downtown Miami

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The owner of a downtown Miami Courtyard Marriott is proposing redeveloping the site into an 82-story mixed-use tower.

A proposal filed with the city of Miami’s Urban Development Review Board reveals AVR Realty Co.’s plans to build a 1.5-million-square-foot residential and hotel high-rise at 200 Southeast Second Avenue. The development would include 637 residential units, 266 hotel rooms, about 9,200 square feet of retail space, 553 parking spaces, and 8,600 square feet of green space. Nichols Brosch Wurst Wolfe & Associates is designing the project.

Rendering of 2nd on 2nd

AVR affiliate Miami Convention Hotel Corp. owns the 1.2-acre property where the 13-story, 231-key Courtyard Miami Downtown/Brickell hotel is located. The building, built in 1975, is adjacent to the Miami Tower at 100 Southeast Second Street, which sold in 2016 for $220 million. The Courtyard site is zoned T6-80-O.

Property records show the AVR affiliate refinanced the Courtyard Marriott in 2015, boosting its financing to $52 million. A year before, AVR hired CBRE to market the property as a redevelopment opportunity, but it was later taken off the market.

According to the UDRB application, the existing hotel would be knocked down. The developer is seeking five waivers, including 10 percent increases in lot coverage, maximum floorplates above the eighth story, substituting commercial loading berths for industrial loading berths, and parking on the second story.

The board will review the development on Wed., April 18. If approved, the project would add to a handful of new towers planned for that area of downtown Miami, which includes the Aston Martin Residences at 300 Biscayne Boulevard Way, Grand Station Partners’30-story project at 40 Northwest Third Street and the YotelPad development at 227 Northeast Second Street.

 

Source: The Real Deal

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Miami’s Global Reputation As A Global City Growing

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Miami has long been marked as the Gateway to Latin America. But with a revitalized urban core and a hot retail market, Miami is increasingly being seen worldwide as a global city.

Miami hit a tipping point, per se, a couple of years ago and the growth has yet to slow. With nearly 6 million residents and an economic output of more than $300 billion, Greater Miami is one of the largest economic regions in the US and the world. In fact, Miami is comparable to Singapore and Hong Kong, according to a study from the FIU-Miami Creative City Initiative.

“We already look at Miami as a major global gateway city,” Peter Muoio, chief economist at Ten-X, tells Globest.com. “It is a nexus for tourism and investment for Latin America owing to its large Hispanic population with cultural and language ties to the region. It also has major attachments to Europe, assisted by its attractive climate and beaches.”

As the study points out, Miami is the hub of the Southern Florida or So-Flo mega-region, extending to Tampa and Orlando, which houses 15 million people and produces more than $750 billion in economic output. That’s roughly the same as the Netherlands, making it one of the 20 largest national economies in the world.

With a coastal location at the southern tip of the eastern seaboard oriented toward Latin America and the Caribbean, Miami is now one of the 25 most important global cities, the report concludes. With its international airport and port, report authors say Miami is the economic and financial hub of Latin America and increasingly a gateway to Europe and the world.

“Southeast Florida’s three major airports have global connectivity, assisting in its gateway status,” Muoio says. “Interestingly, Miami can benefit from economic success in Latin America as wealth creation increases tourism and investment flows, as well as from turmoil in the region, as it offers a safe harbor.”

 

Source: GlobeSt.

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Judge Rules Miami Violated Watson Island Developer’s Lease, Could Owe Millions In Damages

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A judge has rejected the city of Miami’s attempt to evict Flagstone Island Gardens from its development site on Watson Island and declared that the city violated the company’s lease.

Flagstone Island Gardens was approved for hotels, condos, retail and a marina on Watson Island in Miami.

The ruling could allow the mega-yacht and mixed-use project to move forward while leaving the city on the hook for million of dollars in damages and attorney fees. Attorney Eugene Stearns, who represents Flagstone Island Gardens, said the developer has spent over $120 million on the project so far.

“The city’s attempt to confiscate the huge investment this family made in this property has been revoked,” Stearns said.

City Attorney Victoria Méndez said the city is evaluating whether to appeal. That decision will likely be made by the City Commission, which voted 5-0 in May 2017 to declare Flagstone Island Gardens in default on its ground lease.

The judge’s decision followed a seven-day trial that wrapped up earlier this month. Miami-Dade County Circuit Court Judge William Thomas ruled that Flagstone Development Corp. is in full compliance with its lease for the city-owned property. On the other hand, he said, the city breached the lease by refusing to approve routine building permits and by declaring the developer in default for no valid reason. The city’s notice of default to the developer is invalid, the judge ruled.

“The city’s breaches have directly and proximately caused damage to Flagstone in an amount to be determined after further proceedings,” Judge Thomas said.

Flagstone has continued to operate the marina because it obtained a stay of the eviction, but it was unable to move forward with development plans. The judge noted that city of Miami staff found no grounds for default before the commission acted.

“City staff concluded that Flagstone was in compliance with the agreements and this court concludes that the substantial and competent evidence supports no other conclusion,” Judge Thomas ruled.

Led by Mehmet Bayraktar, Flagstone Island Gardens LLC and Flagstone Development Corp. was selected by the city in 2002 to lease and develop a project on Watson Island, which is along the MacArthur Causeway on the way to Miami Beach. Work on the site stalled during the recession, then again when community activists opposed to the project unsuccessfully pursued lawsuits.

In 2016, Flagstone completed the Island Gardens Deep Harbour mega yacht marina with 5,000 linear feet of boat slips. It opened a restaurant, but was forced to shut it down for permitting reasons. Bayraktar planned to build two hotels, condos, retail, and restaurants, including a fish market and a harbormaster building.

The developer signed a ground lease with the city in 2016 for the retail and parking phases on 24.2 upland and submerged acres. The deadline to start construction was April 30, 2017.

A group of local activists called the Coalition Against Causeway Chaos started a campaign to block the project over traffic and height concerns, filing lawsuits and submitting numerous letters to city officials. Stearns, the attorney from Stearns Weaver Miller, said this group had major influence on both city staff and the city commission in stifling Flagstone Garden’s progress. Building permits that should have been granted were stalled, he said.

“The City Commission took the unprecedented step of stripping the Planning and Zoning Department of all its authority to act on Flagstone’s application,” Judge Thomas ruled. “As a result of CACC’s actions, all formal actions taken by the city related to the project was overly examined and overly inspected beyond the normal approval process.”

In the city’s notice of default, it claimed that Flagstone failed to start construction by the April 30, 2017 deadline. However, Judge Thomas ruled that the developer laid rebar and poured concrete to build the foundation of the fish market and harbormaster building well before that deadline.

Miami Commissioner Ken Russell, a leading opponent of Flagstone, told the Miami Herald commissioners would continue to flight.

“At the end of the day, the commission made the right decision and our case is very strong on appeal – the developer was in default and the contract was broken,” Russell said.

But Stearns said Flagstone fully intends to develop the project and he expects the city to issue a building permit. He will ask the judge to issue a restructured lease to account for the city’s default and provide new time frames for construction.

“I am enormously grateful to have been able to tell his story while having misleading political motives exposed in a forum where truth stands taller than hysterical falsehoods, Bayraktar said. “The vision we have for this project is alive and well and will prove transformational for this great city now that we will have the opportunity to finish it,”

 

Source: SFBJ

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Colombian Interest In Miami Real Estate Holds Steady Into 2018

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Colombians continued searching for Miami homes in January, according to a new report from the Miami Association of Realtors.

Potential buyers from Colombia again led a ranking of foreign nationals searching for South Florida homes using the association’s website, with 12.6 percent of the total, up from 10.5 percent the previous month. The list also includes Venezuela with 9.5 percent and Canada with 7 percent.

Foreign investment in residential real estate in South Florida totaled $7.1 billion last year, up nearly 15 percent from the previous year’s $6.2 billion. Colombian and Canadian home buyers tied for the third-most international home purchases in South Florida last year with 9 percent, each.

Check out the full list for January:

  1. Colombia: 12.6%
  2. Venezuela 9.5%
  3. Canada 7.0%
  4. Brazil 5.8%
  5. Argentina: 5.0%
  6. India: 4.1%
  7. Peru: 3.9%
  8. Spain: 3.2%
  9. Philippines: 3.1%
  10. Dominican Republic: 2.7%

Within the U.S., those most interested in buying residential real estate in South Florida were from Texas, North Carolina, California, New York and Georgia, according to the report.

 

Source: The Real Deal

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For High-End Branded Buildings, Miami Reigns

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Real estate developers, increasingly faced with a bevy of competition, are choosing well-known luxury lifestyle brands to entice buyers with more than just bricks and mortar.

With five luxury brand-affiliated buildings set to open in South Florida by 2021, the sunny region has seemingly become the unofficial home of the branded building, helped in large part by its international buying demographic. The trend is not quite so en vogue in long-established luxury markets. In London and New York City, for example, branding partnerships lean soundly toward hotels as opposed to luxury fashion and automobile brands. But London’s first fashion-brand partnership, a collaboration between Versace Home and the AYKON London One tower in the city’s Nine Elms regeneration zone, is headed to the capital in 2020.

Meanwhile, newer markets like Dubai and Beijing have long been the targets for luxury-branded developments. Dubai’s Armani hotel opened in 2010; last year, Armani’s eco-friendly complex with Smart Hero Group in Beijing was completed. The fashion house is also working on the interiors at Century Spire in Manila, Philippines, set to be completed this year. Meanwhile, Fendi partnered with DAMAC Properties for the interiors of Dubai’s DAMAC Residenze, which opened in 2017.

Miami Likes The Flash

The popularity of the branded-building in the Sunshine State though, boils down to one simple thing, according to one developer.

“Miami is more of a flashier type of city, than other areas like New York or Chicago that are a little more conservative,”  said Jon Paul Perez, vice president of Related Group, one of the developers behind Residences by Armani/Casa, set to open in the city in 2019.

The Porsche Design Tower may be one of the most well-known projects to emerge onto the Florida market. The building on Sunny Isles Beach, a barrier island north of Miami, is a collaboration between Dezer Development and high-performance German car manufacturer Porsche.

The 60-story building—designed by Sieger Suarez Architects—was completed last year and comes with a high-powered automobile elevator that transports drivers and their cars from street level to parking at their apartments. Only six of the tower’s 132 residences remain unsold, according to Gil Dezer, president of Dezer Development. Sales launched in 2012.

The automobile collaborations don’t end there. In downtown Miami, British luxury vehicle company Aston Martin has partnered with Argentinian developer G&G Business Developments for their own tower. The 66-story building, set for completion in 2021, will be topped with a triplex penthouse and have amenities like a fitness center and spa, a pool deck and a marina.

But it’s the fashion-conscious buyer that’s really being catered to in the sunshine state. Italian fashion house Fendi paired with developers Château Group for the Fendi Château Residences, the inaugural Fendi-branded residential project. The 12-story building in Surfside was completed in 2016 and houses 58 units, including three penthouses with private rooftop sundecks and swimming pools.

Armani is set to hit the South Florida residential scene in summer 2019 with their Residences by Armani/Casa project. Roughly five blocks away from the Porsche Design Tower in Sunny Isles Beach, the 56-story building is over 75% sold. It’s expected to be finished in the summer of 2019 and the tower will have over 35,000-square-feet of amenities, including a wine cellar and cigar room.

Missoni Baia, in Miami’s Edgewater neighborhood, is a partnership between the fashion house known for its colorful style and developer OKO Group. Designed by Hani Rashid of Asymptote Architecture, the 57-story building is slated for completion in the fall of 2020. It will have 229 residences, ranging in size from 776 to 3,788 square feet.

Why South Florida?

A branded building in South Florida “is a sign of distinction,” said Edgardo Defortuna, the president and CEO of Fortune International Group, the exclusive broker of Missoni Baia.

With so many high-end new buildings from which to choose, being able to distinguish a building is important for developers. And in Miami, where many developers don’t even begin construction until they’ve hit 50% in pre-sales to secure funding and guarantee interest, branding becomes even more important, according to Mr. Defortuna.

“In New York City, you build and then you sell. In Miami, we sell before the building becomes a reality,” Mr. Defortuna said. “To be able to ‘sell the dream,’ so to speak, it’s important to have something to point to.”

Those well-known—and well-respected—brands can theoretically get those buildings built more quickly.

Recipe For Success

Partnership conditions vary from deal to deal, but typically the developer will pay the brand a percentage of sales, typically 2% to 5%, which is paid at the closing of each unit in the building, according to Mr. Defortuna.

“For that fee, the developer has the right to use the name—subject to brand standards—and the brand provides either design or management services, according to the agreement worked out between the parties,” Mr. Defortuna said.

“But for a brand to make a successful foray into real estate, it has to be one that people associate with not only luxury but a certain type of lifestyle that people can relate and aspire to,” Mr. Perez said. “At the same time, it has to be a brand the developer can work with. The brand and designer can have amazing ideas but you have to be able to build those and make them a reality.”

Not only does a partnership have to be chosen with care, but the brand must translate clearly and recognizably into the project.

“In the Aston Martin Residences, it’s not as if the place is emblazoned with wings,” said Marek Reichman, Aston Martin’s chief creative officer and the lead designer on the Aston Martin Residences project, referring to the sports car’s logo. “It’s much more subtle than that.”

Signature materials from the brand’s cars are found in the tower’s interiors, common areas and amenity spaces, like the hand-stitched leather door tabs—sourced from a Scottish village—and  the carbon fiber lobby furniture.

“Obviously there’s a design aesthetic,” Mr. Reichman said. “The units remain more neutral. If a customer comes along and is buying, they can make a choice to create their own environment or talk to us and we can advise them or create for them. However much of Aston Martin you want, you can have.”

Not only does the aesthetic matter for the brand itself, but it’s crucial to brand loyalists too, who inevitably become an important section of buyers.

“There’s a real sense of connection with the brand and for our traditionalists that’s brilliant,” Mr. Reichman said. “Buyers so far have been a 50/50 split between customers that know the brand and those who have just come to the showroom regardless of the connection. The real estate venture allows Aston Martin to secure “those new and different customers that we haven’t looked to talk to before because they haven’t come from the traditional automotive channels.”

Who’s Buying?

Foreign buyers purchased $7.1 billion of South Florida residential properties last year, up from $6.2 billion a year ago, according to a recent report by the Miami Association of Realtors. In Miami alone, foreign buyers accounted for 35% of closed sales and purchased 15,400 properties last year, a 41.3% surge from the year before (10,900).

Argentinian buyers led the way, accounting for 15% of South Florida foreign purchases, followed by Venezuela (11%), Canada and Colombia (9% each). It’s for this reason that internationally recognized brands are key.

“Your buyers a lot of the time are from out of the country and associate a lot with these brands,” Mr. Perez said. “They know Armani, even from just going to the stores, they can feel how that is going to transition into the building they’re buying in.”

Of the sales to date at Residences by Armani/Casa, Mr. Perez said 80% have been from international buyers. Robert Thorne, CEO and founder of Miami-based The Wellness Habitat Co., is one of the other 20%. He bought a two-bedroom unit on the 25th floor at Residences by Armani/Casa about two years ago for $1.4 million, as soon as sales launched at the building. The apartment will be Mr. Thorne’s Miami base, he told Mansion Global, now that he primarily lives in Mexico City.

“An important factor in his purchase was the developer,” Mr. Thorne said. “But the brand was the main thing. We had seen the Armani building in Dubai and were convinced by the style. I’m not 100% Armani, but I follow the brand, we have stuff at home from Armani, I wear Armani suits. Just knowing that the brand is behind it, it makes sure that everything else is going to be of quality. We knew our investment was going to be secure.”

 

Source: Mansion Global

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