Miami Worldcenter project to feature new condo towers

New condo towers will be an integral part of the overall plans for the recently approved Miami Worldcenter mixed-use complex slated to be developed on 27 acres of vacant land located west of Biscayne Boulevard in Greater Downtown Miami.

For the first time, developers Nitin Motwani and Art Falcone publicly confirmed their decision to incorporate new condo towers into phase one of the planned $2 billion Miami Worldcenter complex during a question-and-answer session at last week’s CBRE Florida Multifamily Summit at the JW Marriott Marquis Miami hotel.

“The interesting thing that we are trying to do is distinguish and create different types of product,” Motwani told a standing-room-only crowd. “We think that is part of what makes Miami Worldcenter interesting. We will have a big-box hotel. We will have a boutique hotel. We will smaller condos. We will have larger condos.

“We will have a for-rent product as well,” he added.

Falcone echoed this overall vision to include a condo component at the Miami Worldcenter project, which is planned to feature an 1,800-room Marriott-branded hotel and expo center plus a 765,000-square foot shopping center anchored by the retailers Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s.

“There will be a tower with large square footage units of, I would say, 1,500 square feet or more,” Falcone said. “There will be a tower with small square footage units for sale.”

The developers declined to reveal any additional specifics – such as the number of units, prices or project names – about the planned condo towers, promising details would be announced in “short order.”

Before last week’s confirmation, the developers of the Miami Worldcenter had avoided commenting publicly on whether the 1,200 residential units planned for the 10-block site would be constructed as apartments for rent or condominiums for sale.

Coinciding with last week’s developer confirmation of planned condo projects, e-mails were distributed on that same Thursday to the real estate brokerage community foreshadowing a “signature residential tower” going by the name Paramount Miami Worldcenter that “is ready to be announced,” according to marketing literature.

As of now, developers are proposing 64 new condo towers totaling nearly 18,500 units in the Greater Downtown Miami market that stretches from the Rickenbacker Causeway north to the Julia Tuttle Causeway, and Biscayne Bay west to I-95, according to the preconstruction condo projects website CraneSpotters.com.

(For disclosure purposes, my firm operates the website.)

To date, developers have announced eight new condo towers totaling more than 1,300 units in Greater Downtown Miami’s Central Business District submarket that stretches from the Miami River north to the MacArthur Causeway.

By comparison, developers have proposed 32 new condo towers totaling nearly 10,100 units in the Brickell Avenue Area submarket that stretches from the Miami River south to the Rickenbacker Causeway.

An additional 24 condo towers totaling nearly 7,100 units have been announced for Greater Downtown Miami’s Biscayne Boulevard Corridor submarket that stretches from the MacArthur Causeway north to the Julia Tuttle Causeway.

The unanswered question going forward is whether presale condo buyers who are today searching for new units in Greater Downtown Miami will delay purchasing in previously announced preconstruction projects until the details of the Miami Worldcenter are revealed.

Peter Zalewski is real estate columnist for The Real Deal who founded Condo Vultures LLC, a consultancy and publishing company, as well as Condo Vultures Realty LLC and CVR Realty brokerages and the Condo Ratings Agency, an analytics firm. The Condo Ratings Agency operates CraneSpotters.com, a preconstruction condo projects website, in conjunction with the Miami Association of Realtors.