First new Faena condo tower completed in Miami Beach

Rendering of the Faena District and Peter Zalewski
Rendering of the Faena District and Peter Zalewski

The first of four planned oceanfront condo towers in the much-anticipated Faena ultra-luxury project stretching from 3200 to 3500 Collins Avenue in Miami Beach has been completed since this South Florida real estate cycle began in 2011.  

Transactions in the newly completed Faena House project — officially called the 3315 Tower condominium — standing 18-stories tall, with 44 units located in the 3300 block of Collins Avenue fronting the Atlantic Ocean in Miami Beach, began to be recorded on Sept. 3, according to Miami-Dade County records.

To date, buyers have taken title to two new condo units in the project developed by a Delaware corporation led by partners Alan Faena and Len Blavatnik, for a combined $27 million, or an average transaction price of more than $3,080 per square foot as of Tuesday, according to government records.

Individual unit sales have transacted at $10.5 million — or $2,397 per square foot — and $16.5 million — or $3,766 per square foot — as of Tuesday, according to government records.

Currently, no condo units in the Faena House project are available for purchase on the Multiple Listing Service database but seven units are “under contract” waiting to transact at an average asking price of $15 million — or nearly $3,300 per square foot — as of Tuesday, according to data from the Southeast Florida MLXchange.

The Faena House is the fifth new condo project with a combined 333 units to be completed in Miami Beach, where developers have announced 42 new condo buildings with more than 1,925 units since this current real estate cycle began more than four years ago, according to the preconstruction condo projects website CraneSpotters.com. (For disclosure, my firm operates the website.)

Developers are currently constructing 15 new condo buildings with nearly 500 units in Miami Beach. An additional 21 new condo buildings with more than 1,100 units are currently in the planning or presale phase of development in the Miami Beach market.

Based on the new units announced, Miami Beach is the seventh most active area east of I-95 in the tri-county South Florida region of Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach as of Tuesday, according to CraneSpotters.com.

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Overall in South Florida, developers have now completed 41 new condo buildings — including the Faena House project — with nearly 3,650 units located east of I-95. The new South Florida condos completed to date represent about 8.3 percent of the nearly 43,800 units announced for the tri-county region during this cycle.

At least 110 new condo buildings with more than 10,900 units — nearly 25 percent of the overall South Florida total — are currently under construction.  

An additional 219 new condo buildings with nearly 29,250 units — about 67 percent of the overall total announced for this cycle — are currently in the planning or presale phase of development in South Florida, according to the data.

At the Faena project, the focus is now on finishing up the construction on the Faena Hotel Residence — formerly the Saxony Hotel — that will feature hotel rooms and 13 penthouse residences in the 3200 block of Collins Avenue just south of the newly completed Faena House condo tower.

To the north of the Faena House, efforts are underway on the development of a pair of condo towers — the new Faena Versailles Contemporary with 41 units and the Faena Versailles Classic with 22 units — in the 3400 block of Collins Avenue.   

The unanswered question going forward is whether the Faena project will be able to attract enough high end buyers for all of the planned ultra-luxury units given the strengthening U.S. dollar, rising real estate prices and a mushrooming supply of new and existing units available for purchase in South Florida.

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.