100 new condo towers now under construction in South Florida

Downtown Miami construction and Peter Zalewski
Downtown Miami construction and Peter Zalewski

Some four years into this current real estate cycle, developers now have at least 100 new condo towers under construction east of I-95 in the tri-county South Florida region.

The 100 towers categorized as under construction are slated to result in more than 11,550 units combined in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties as of Monday, according to the preconstruction condo projects website CraneSpotters.com. (For disclosure, my firm operates the website.)

In addition to the projects that are under construction, developers have already created an additional 22 new condo towers with nearly 1,600 units since this cycle began in 2011.

These statistics mean the combined number of condos that are currently under construction or already completed represents nearly 31 percent of the more than 42,700 units  to be located in more than 330 new towers — announced for South Florida.

The remainder of the new condo units in the development pipeline for South Florida are classified into one of two categories: proposed or planned.

In the proposed category, some 85 new condo towers with nearly 14,100 units have been announced but do not yet have the necessary governmental approval to build. This category of proposed represents nearly 33 percent of the overall total number of preconstruction condo units announced for South Florida.

An additional 126 new condo towers with more than 15,500 units are in the category of planned, or already approved. The planned category of projects accounts for more than 36 percent of the overall total number of units announced for South Florida during this cycle.

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It should not be a surprise that Miami-Dade County is experiencing the most condo construction activity in the tri-county region since more than 72 percent of the new units announced to date are slated to be located there.

Currently, nearly 70 new condo towers with more than 9,500 units are under construction in Miami-Dade.

Broward  which accounts for nearly 20 percent of all new condos during this cycle  has 29 towers with nearly 1,900 units under construction.

In Palm Beach, where about eight percent of South Florida’s new condos are slated to be developed in this cycle, there is one project currently under construction that represents two towers with less than 170 units.

The unanswered question going forward is whether preconstruction developers can attract enough buyers to purchase the necessary number of units to trigger construction of the combined 211 new towers with nearly 30,000 condos that are currently in the proposed or planned categories in South Florida during this cycle.    

Peter Zalewski is a real estate columnist for The Real Deal who founded Condo Vultures LLC, a consultancy and publishing company, as well as Condo Vultures Realty LLC and CVR Realty brokerages and the Condo Ratings Agency, an analytics firm. The Condo Ratings Agency operates CraneSpotters.com, a preconstruction condo projects website, in conjunction with the Miami Association of Realtors.