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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Worldcenter Gets FAA Approval For A Second 40-Story Apartment Tower

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Miami Worldcenter has been granted FAA approval to build another 40-story tower.

The Federal Aviation Administration just ruled that the proposal to build a second tower at 7th Street apartments does not pose a hazard to air navigation. The application was submitted September 29, 2017 and took five months to review.

The east tower, known as Caoba, is already topped off, with 43 stories and 444 units.

The west tower is not yet under construction and hasn’t been named, but will include 40-story and 429-unit.

According to the FAA application, the west tower will top off at 485 feet above ground and 496 feet above sea level, identical in height to the eastern Caoba tower.

Photos of East Caoba Tower from mid January:

 

Source: The Next Miami

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North Miami Beach Dean’s Gold Site Will Become A Massive Mixed-Use Project

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What was once Dean’s Gold, a Miami Vice-era North Miami Beach strip club that the Miami Herald dubbed a “historical landmark,” will one day be the site of a one million-square-foot mixed used development.

CK Privé Group’s Uptown Biscayne project just received City Council approval to build a complex, the South Florida Business Journal reported. The project includes a 16-story residential tower, 35,000 square feet of offices, more than 170,000 square feet of retail spanning a grocery store, restaurant and fitness club, and more than 1,000 parking spaces — along with a pedestrian Main Street and 40,00-square-foot garden.

Arquitectonica is behind the design of the mixed-use center, which will span nearly five acres of highly visible intersections. Construction is expected to kick off this year.

 

Source: Curbed Miami

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Skyscrapers Face The Apocalypse

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On an ordinary day, George Dotzler may deal with wind speeds equivalent to a Category 5 hurricane, torrential rains akin to a monsoon and seismic shifts that feel like an earthquake. Rounding out the day could involve a heat wave and an arctic blast.

Mr. Dotzler, 58, is the director of operations for the Construction Research Laboratory, where builders, developers and architects go to test the durability and stability of glass building facades, called curtain walls. Located at what looks like an abandoned airfield in Miami, the lab has 38 sealed test chambers and all the equipment to replicate the forces of nature.

“It’s like ‘Mad Max’ here,” Dotzler said, referencing the 1979 movie’s dystopian landscape.

A mock-up of a facade at the testing lab.(Photo Credit: Scott McIntyre for The Wall Street Journal)

With skyscrapers sprouting up around the world, demand for structural testing is strong. Big-name architects are increasingly designing towers with quirky shapes, and developers must go to greater lengths to ensure that the unusual curves and crannies can withstand even the harshest conditions. While some testing is required by municipal law, most developers are going the extra mile, since they can’t afford to start mending ruptures and leaks once their buildings are up. Only three or four facilities in the U.S. have experience testing super-tall structures, Mr. Dotzler estimated.

In recent years, the company has been testing 53W53, a 1,050-foot-tall tower designed by architect Jean Nouvel that is under construction adjacent to the Museum of Modern Art in midtown Manhattan. Scheduled for completion in 2019, the 82-story building will have 145 luxury condominiums. The developers—a partnership between Houston-based Hines, Singapore-based Pontiac Land Group and Goldman Sachs —decided on a tapered structure with criss-cross structural framing on the exterior.

“Everything in this curtain wall is bespoke, custom-made for this building,” said David Penick, managing director at Hines. “Every piece of aluminum. Nothing is off the shelf.”

The developers had 6,000 panels of triple-paned glass custom-made by German manufacturer Interpane. Some were incorporated into two mock-ups, which typically include the trickiest, most vulnerable elements of the building, such as the corners, joints and vents, what Mr. Dotzler calls a “Frankenstein arrangement.”

“It’s like a doctor wanting to test a human being by putting together a mock-up with one ear, one nose and one elbow,” Dotzler said.

The mock-up went through a litany of tests. In one of the chambers, both inward and outward pressure was exerted on the glass as part of a water-infiltration test to see how much the design could sustain without cracking or leaking. The pressure was equivalent to about 77.5 mph winds.

Later, a Pratt & Whitney R-2800 aircraft engine with 13-foot propellers was positioned in front of the mock-up. Mr. Dotzler turned on the water spray rack and cranked up the speed of the generator to simulate a dynamic wind load—an effect that’s similar to a hurricane. Researchers then attached a hydraulics system to the structure of the building and shoved segments right and left in an attempt to determine whether they’d be secure in case of an earthquake or wind drift.

“Some of the pressures exerted on these facades far exceed what is likely to occur naturally,” Dotzler said. “If the facade survives these loads, it’s been well-designed and is sufficiently strong. The testing took several weeks and cost about $150,000. No major changes to the facade were made as a result.”

National Certified Testing Laboratories, based in York, Pa., tested a mock-up of an 88-story luxury condo tower scheduled for completion next year in downtown Manhattan. The building, called 125 Greenwich Street, was designed by Rafael Viñoly and features rounded corners.

Steven Della Salla, a managing partner at Bizzi & Partners Development, said his company paid about $210,000 to create the mock-up of 125 Greenwich Street, and another $163,000 for the tests themselves.

Mr. Dotzler said his company also is popular with Hollywood filmmakers, who like to shoot the facility’s post-apocalyptic aesthetic.

“We’ve hosted a couple of episodes of ‘Graceland’ and ‘Burn Notice,’ ” Dotzler said. “But we try to have them only after hours or on weekends.”

 

Source: Wall Street Journal

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Transit-Oriented Magic City Innovation District Submitted, Includes 2,500 Residential Units

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The Magic City Innovation District Special Area Plan was submitted to the city of Miami for review last month.

According to the documents, the developers are proposing to build:

  • 2,490 residential units
  • 1,763,820 office square feet (net)
  • 432 hotel rooms
  • 313,165 retail square feet (net)
  • 5,547 parking spaces in garages

In total, 17 buildings with the tallest at 27 stories are planned. Completion of the entire conccpt will take 10-15 years, with construction to begin in 2020, according to the project website (although existing buildings will be rehabilitated before then).

In a letter, the developer says they intend to build a Transit Oriented Development, with a stop to be built on the Brightline/Tri-Rail Coastal Link track.

Cirque Du Soleil Billionaire Guy Laliberté is listed as having a stake on an ownership statement submitted with the proposal.

Arquitectonica is the architect.

Source: The Next Miami

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The North Miami Beach Renaissance Rising Strong

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Developer EDEN Multifamily topped off construction of NOMA, an eight-story, 347-unit apartment building at 2145 Northeast 164th Street in the heart of North Miami Beach.

Scheduled to be completed in fall 2018, NOMA is EDEN’s first development in North Miami Beach and represents a significant milestone for the city, which is experiencing a renaissance following the 2015 completion of the City’s Mixed Use Town Center zoning district. The multifamily project is located in the emerging Community Redevelopment Area on the east side of the city.

EDEN and Coastal Construction, the project’s general contractor, are set to host a topping off celebration at the project site on February 2 at noon. City of North Miami Beach commissioners, city officials and other invited guests will be on hand to tour the project and enjoy the festivities.

“We are finding a strong demand from renters for boutique apartment buildings in urban areas—or the downtown areas of suburban markets—as an alternative to the high-rise towers that dominate these areas,” EDEN Multifamily president Jay Jacobson tells GlobeSt.com. “These renters are seeing that you can find value and convenience at new boutique buildings without sacrificing the level of amenities. The challenge for multifamily developers is to identify areas where this type of product can be delivered on a cost-effective basis.”

NOMA includes studio, one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments, an eight-story parking garage and ground-floor retail space. Building amenities include an inner courtyard with a heated pool, an elevated sundeck seating area with a firepit, community rooms, a state-of-the-art fitness center with a yoga/spin room and a dog walk and grooming area.

EDEN will enhance the public greenspace along the Snake Creek Canal with extensive landscaping, public seating, a walking path/bikeway and a significant public art installation. The multifamily property offers common area Wi-Fi and large community gathering spaces.

Coastal Construction is the general contractor. MSA Architects is the NOMA architect, with Bruce Howard and Associates providing landscape architecture and ID& Design Internationalas the interior designer.

 

Source: GlobeSt.

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