Miami Beach condo-hotel targets NY buyers

The luxury and second-home markets may still be hurting, but the marketers over at Miami Beach hotel-condo Canyon Ranch are hoping the tranquility of the wellness-inspired property will be enough to lure wealthy New Yorkers away from their chilly recession cocoons.

To that end, the Brown Harris Stevens sales team in New York of Wendy Maitland, Brenda Powers, Reid Price and Elizabeth Sample, recently brought on to market the remaining units, hosted a luncheon this afternoon at Midtown sushi restaurant Nobu 57, where roughly three dozen members of the industry and press gathered to hear their pitch (see slide show above).

The complex was built by WSG Development at 6801 Collins Avenue, with interior common spaces designed by the Rockwell Group. It sits along 750 feet of beach and boasts a 70,000-square-foot wellness spa, both of which are accessible to residents of its 430 condos, 150 hotel-condos, and its hotel guests.
Shawn Sullivan, principal of Rockwell, which also designed Nobu 57, spoke to the crowd about his vision for the property.

Around 50 percent of the for-sale units have sold since sales kicked off in 2004 with prices starting at $600,000, but last year, 336 units at the three-tower complex were taken over by Lehman Brothers for $291 million, or $692 per square foot, in a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure that was also a bulk sales record for South Florida. BHS is hoping that Northeastern retirees and vacationers will make up the majority of their sales. BHS said it nabbed its first two signed contracts last week.