At left and right: Renderings of One Thousand Ocean. Center: Jamie Techlin, LXR president of development, on the terraces of One Thousand Ocean, overlooking its constructionStalled luxury building projects abound in Boca Raton.
So a recent spike in sales at the almost-finished ultra-luxurious One Thousand Ocean is cause for optimism, at least for its developer, LXR Luxury Resorts & Hotels.
On Wednesday, LXR announced the sale of six units in a six-week period from November to mid-December for nearly $23 million. That brings the total number of units sold to 32 of 52 available apartments which range in price from $3 million to $15 million.
“I just signed another contract yesterday,” said Senada Adzem of the Corcoran Sunshine Marketing Group, and senior sales associate for One Thousand Ocean.
While LXR welcomes the jump in sales activity, it doesn’t necessarily indicate an improvement in the luxury market, one of the sectors hit hardest by the South Florida real estate downturn, development experts said. Builders in the wealthy city of Boca Raton have to reconfigure projects and lower expectations, they said.
Many luxury projects will have to have a price adjustment before there’s an improvement in the market, said Lewis Goodkin, a Miami-based real estate consultant.
That’s what Stiles plans to do with its Reserve at Blue Lake project in Boca Raton.
Since erecting models, it hasn’t sold one of the planned 140 townhomes or 32 single-family homes it hoped to sell for prices ranging from $600,000 to $1 million, according to people familiar with the project. The revisions of the project on 23 acres of land once owned by IBM will include a price reduction to the $250,000 to $400,000 range.
Other Boca Raton luxury projects that are frozen include MCZ/Centrum Florida V’s plans to build 211 townhomes on a golf course at the Ocean Breeze Golf and Country Club and Lennar’s proposal to put up 55 single-family homes and 37 multi-family units on 10 acres downtown next to the city library.
Some developers who were able to finish projects despite the slump have already adjusted to today’s market and have started to see an uptick in units selling as the winter season begins.
That’s the case at 200 East Palmetto in Boca Raton.
Construction of the 115 condos finished in January and the developers, the Lojeta Group and Millennium Homes, have sold 30 units with another 11 contracts pending.
“In the last two weeks we have averaged about a sale every two and half days,” said George Corey, vice president of sales and marketing for Lojeta.
But all those luxury projects are not in the same league as One Thousand Ocean, which is comprised of condo units on the grounds of the famed Boca Raton Resort & Club.
The $200 million seven-story, nautilus-shaped One Thousand Ocean, expected to be completed February 2010, sits on a peninsula surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the Boca Raton Inlet and the Intracoastal Waterway. LXR, which also owns the resort, built it next door to the Boca Beach Club, which is part of the resort.
The one- and two-story villas, which take up the first two floors of the building, and penthouses average 4,000 square feet of living space with terraces of about 1,200 square feet. All of the units feature private elevators, floor-to-ceiling glass walls, fireplaces, private plunge pools, outdoor kitchens and private underground two-car garages.
There’s an oceanfront pool and sundeck, private cabanas, oceanfront fitness center with a spa, yoga and pilates rooms as well as a lakefront lounge with catering kitchen, available exclusively to residents.
“A five-star resort in a prestigious area like a Boca or a Palm Beach, you’re talking about a very unique situation,” Goodkin said.
In addition, he said, there aren’t that many projects that are being built right on the ocean.
Since the mid-1990s, the resort’s two previous owners, including Wayne Huizenga, tried unsuccessfully to redevelop the land, only to be stymied by neighborhood opposition. LXR, owned by the Blackstone Group, bought the property from Huizenga in 2004 for $1.2 billion.
LXR inherited the lawsuits and the fight. In response to the community opposition, it scaled back the original plans.
“I think what got it done was honest sit-down negotiations,” said Jaime Telchin, president of development for LXR.
Negotiated details got down to the types of mufflers that could be used on construction equipment. The document signed with the neighbors to allow the project to move forward was inches thick, Telchin said.
“It’s fairly remarkable,” said Charles Siemon, a prominent Boca Raton land-use attorney that worked on the project. “I think that’s why in a very difficult time it’s selling.”