Miami yacht club project ready to sell condos in 2nd tower

UPDATED, Oct. 25, 10:30 a.m.: Miami-Dade’s first new yacht club and condo development in 20 years is gearing up to launch sales in a few weeks for its second tower. The Marina Palms Yacht Club & Residences expects work on the skyscraper to start next spring.

The 14-acre North Miami Beach project, jointly developed by affiliates of the Plaza Group and the DevStar Group, will have two 25-story towers with 468 units as well as a full-service yacht club and a 112-foot marina with 112 boat slips for yachts.

The towers, at 172nd Street and Biscayne Boulevard, are identical except for the asking price of their units. The homes in the second tower will have an average asking price of $550 per square foot, compared with the first tower’s $450 per square foot. Owners in the second tower will look out on the marina and the Intracoastal Waterway; those in the first tower, which broke ground last month, will see the marina and city views.

“It’s a water-view premium,” Anthony Burns, a principal of DevStar Group, told The Real Deal. “Those buying homes at the second tower prefer the ambiance of being on a large marina.”

The second tower’s higher prices also reflect changing market prices, a larger pool deck, unobstructed views and other factors, Burns said.

The DevStar Group handles all sales and marketing in-house to, as Burns put it, “wield a much greater degree of control in execution.”

Based on data from its other developments, DevStar knows 40 percent of its condo unit buyers live in Latin America; 40 percent live in Florida – some of who hail from Latin America; and 20 percent live in Europe, the northeastern U.S. or Canada, Burns said.

The first tower should be finished in 2015; the second one is looking at a 2016 completion date. Slattery & Associates is handling the architectural design; Coastal Construction is serving as contractor.