Michael Stern taps Official for Dolce & Gabbana condo sales

Michael Stern tapped Official to lead sales of his Dolce & Gabbana-branded supertall condo tower planned for Miami’s Brickell neighborhood. 

Stern’s JDS Development Group partnered with the Italian fashion house that is expanding into real estate with other projects planned in Spain and the Maldives. The Miami tower, at 888 Brickell Avenue, was previously planned as The Major until Major Food Group and JDS parted ways. 

Official, a Side-backed brokerage that brothers Oren and Tal Alexander started a year ago with their partners, is “weeks away” from launching condo sales of the 888 Brickell tower, according to an email blast from Official. Prices will range from about $3.5 million to more than $35 million for a penthouse, CNN reported. That’s higher than the price range for the previous Major Food Group version of the development, where unit prices were expected to start at $1.6 million. 

The 90-story, 259-unit condo and hotel building would sit on a half-acre lot. O’Donnell Dannwolf & Partners is the architecture firm and Studio Sofield is designing the interiors. Plans for the building include 115,000 square feet of amenities across eight floors, including restaurants, bars, a pool deck, indoor paddle court and boxing gym.

The tower is planned to rise 1,049 feet, marking one of a few developments in the works at that height, which would set a new record for residential towers in South Florida. JDS has been under contract to acquire the seven-story office building currently on the site for years. 

The developer and Official’s Oren Alexander did not respond to requests for comment. 

Official is also leading sales and marketing of the Raleigh in Miami Beach, a Rosewood-branded Shvo development. Official’s other founding partners include Andrew Wachtfogel, Nicole Oge and Richard Jordan, who all worked for Douglas Elliman before joining the new firm. (The Alexander brothers left Elliman to launch Official last year.) 

Though Dolce & Gabbana has been a dominant fashion house for decades, the designer brand’s exposure has increased in recent years with its partnerships with the Kardashian family. 

Earlier this year, Dolce & Gabbana announced its expansion into branded residential real estate. 

Branded developments have boomed in South Florida, with more than two dozen luxury condo towers in the pipeline. Hospitality, luxury automotive and fashion brands will typically secure branding fees from developers. Those fees can range from 3 percent to 8 percent of condo sales, developers and brokers say. Most branding agreements are for 10 years, with extension options and the expectation that the brand will be in place for much longer. Once the building is delivered, owners pay brand management fees as part of their HOA dues.

Major Food Group and JDS didn’t have a signed agreement for the Brickell project, sources previously told The Real Deal. But Major Food Group, the New York-based restaurant group that has expanded in South Florida since the pandemic began, is now working with a joint venture led by Terra and One Thousand Group on a luxury condo tower nearby in Miami’s Edgewater.

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