The Closing: Alicia Cervera Lamadrid

Take your pick of events that draw Miami’s most influential players, and, chances are, somewhere in the mix will be Alicia Cervera Lamadrid.

When Ken Griffin riffed onstage with Miami Mayor Francis Suarez about his vision to reshape his adopted city, there was Cervera Lamadrid, elegantly dressed in the front row. At Miami’s first Formula One Grand Prix last year, there she was by turn five, sporting an Aston Martin Residences cap with her deputy, development sales head Jesse Ottley. And to kick off Art Basel, Cervera Lamadrid hobnobbed with real estate and other Miami heavyweights at Fisher Island Club’s season opener.   

Cervera Lamadrid has been through Miami’s highs — once selling 1,000 condos in three days — and lows, closing out new projects during the financial crisis of 2008 as her partnership with condo king Jorge Pérez came to an end. 

Today, she is managing partner of the Miami-based brokerage Cervera Real Estate alongside her sister, CEO Veronica Cervera Goeseke, and her mother, company Chair Alicia Cervera. Cervera Goeseke and Cervera Lamadrid’s daughters also work for the firm, which is one of the city’s top new development sales and marketing firms. The company has led sales and marketing for nearly 25,000 units across over 100 condo projects and worked with more than 85 developers, claiming to have closed more than $18 billion in new development sales to date. 

The company’s pipeline, with over 2,000 units, includes the under-construction Aston Martin condo in downtown Miami and the recently launched 1428 Brickell tower, which will be partially solar-powered.

The Real Deal sat down with Cervera Lamadrid to discuss raising her kids in the industry, her split with Related Group and what she considers the demise of America’s greatest cities. 

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. 

Born: March 26, 1958
Hometown: Havana, Cuba
Lives: Coral Gables, Florida
Family: Married, two children

What were you like as a kid?

Around 10, 11, I discovered sports and then I discovered boys. And the whole world changed. I played every single sport, all of them horribly badly. But it didn’t matter. And I think that that was important. Because if you’re not OK with being bad at things, I think it stops you from trying a lot of things. 

What was it like coming to the U.S. as a child?

I showed up at kindergarten and they said, “What’s your name?” And I said, “Alicia,” and they said, “OK, Alice, sit here.” They changed my name. 

What are you like as a mom?

I’m very close with both of my kids. My daughter works with me. When I was selling a project called Brickell Key II next to my office, which was in a unit, there was a big walk-in closet, and that was her nursery. As she got older, she would go to all of the cocktail parties. 

I would go to these birthday parties dressed like I was working, and the moms would be in sweatsuits or whatever normal moms wore. I remember once being at a birthday party, and you know, the moms are getting up and saying, “I’m going to go feed, you know, Susie and Johnny and whatever.” All of a sudden my daughter comes in, she was maybe 7, and her brother was 5, and she comes up holding her brother’s hand and says, “Mom, we’re gonna go get something to eat, do you want me to bring you something?” I jump out of my chair, and I go, “Oh my God, I’m going to get reported.”

You’ve been with your husband nearly four decades. How do you make it work?

We both decided that it was the only option. When I married my husband, it was very important to me that the value of marriage meant more to him than I did. Because how much I meant to him might ebb and flow. 

When people ask, “Do you love your husband?” My answer is, “not every day.” “Are you in love with him?” “Not every month.” “[But] how do you feel about the sacrament of marriage?” “It’s the best thing we’ve got.”

You weren’t planning on getting into the family business. Why the change of heart?

I was in a Ph.D. program in clinical psychology. I finished the coursework, but before I did the dissertation and the internship, I decided that I did not want to spend my life in a world of dealing with people’s problems. By the time you go in to see a therapist, the outcome is hopefully a happy place, but usually it doesn’t start in a happy place. I wanted to spend more of my life in a happy place. 

I wasn’t sure exactly what I was going to do. I had a willing and able employer who definitely wanted me there … so here I am. 

Who’s your ideal client?

The one that’s in front of me. 

You have to treat them that way because they are the client. It’s so easy to forget that because we’ve been doing this for a long time and we’ve seen a lot of things come and go. With developers, it’s so easy to criticize and to judge, but the bottom line is that they play very, very high-stakes poker. And that stress that comes along with that is enormous.

Is your mom still active in the business?

Let me be clear: I work for her. Until you let me forget it. 

Mom just doesn’t see any barriers. Where people see one door and two windows, she sees one door, two windows and five cracks. What if we dig a hole and go down? Maybe we blow through the roof?

Are you concerned about the effect a recession will have on Miami?

I am concerned about the interest rates being so high. I would say it’s a short-term concern, but the thing with inflation is that it touches every part of your life. The other thing that’s happening now is our country is experiencing a time of great uncertainty. We have a very divided country and a very challenged leadership.

Miami is the beneficiary. They’re not going to New York, and they’re not going to San Francisco, and they’re not going to Chicago, because they’re over the bad government, the bad leadership, the chaos, the crime. They’re over it. They want to come somewhere that’s working. 

It’s such a tragedy to see what’s happening in these spectacular cities. It’s unbelievable to me that the American public is letting this happen. As our country goes, ultimately, our city will go, so for me it’s a horrible thing. 

What specifically is tragic?

It’s the breakdown of the moral fiber in the country, which results in crime, and results in such confusing things like thinking that the best way to treat a homeless person is by making them more comfortable being homeless. So let’s give them a tent. Let’s feed them outside. Let’s give them more drugs. Let’s make them more comfortable being homeless. That to me is a breakdown in the rational thought process.

What’s your biggest weakness?

It’s very easy for you to know exactly what I’m thinking, because I will tell you. Not everybody likes that, and people get very confused by that because they’re assuming there’s some agenda there. And there really isn’t. 

You led Cervera’s partnership with Related Group for 10 years.

It was a phenomenal ride. We were all very young and very hungry. And we worked. [Jorge Pérez] called me one day and I said, “Perfect timing. I just sold out [a project].” He said, “No, I know. I’m calling you about the next job.” I sold them, he built them. 

It ended in 2008, 2009. At that point, I had a decision to make. Jorge was not really interested in managing or having a general real estate company. I had to decide where I was going to spend the next 10 years of my career, so I decided that it was time to move on. It took us about a year to disconnect. We started the company on a handshake, and we ended it on a handshake.

How did you adapt to the changing buyer pool in Miami, from foreign to primarily domestic?

I don’t know that we’ve ever had to pivot — it’s always kind of been linear. Ultimately, the New York firms realized that Miami was a great market and started coming here and they were following their clients, but their clients were already here. It’s been just an ongoing evolution of our work, to service the New Yorkers and the people from Chicago and the people from Europe and from all over the globe.

What’s your biggest extravagance?

My brother would say to me, “You have to get over your immigrant mentality.” Because I always feel like, no, I really can’t afford that. No, I really shouldn’t buy that. There’s angst about it. I like to travel. I much prefer buying one good thing rather than five little things. I prefer having one good dress, or one great piece of jewelry, or trips. I’d rather save, save, save and get something special. 

How do you handle disappointment?

I’m just very clear about communication. There are consequences to messing up. I also tell people a lot not to worry about me being upset. If you think I’m upset and you don’t know I’m upset, I’m not upset. Because if I was upset, I would have told you.

People will call me and they’ll say, “I’ve been worried about this for three days.” Three days? You wasted three days worrying about this? Why didn’t you call me 30 seconds after you started worrying?