Douglas Elliman takes over sales at Riva in Fort Lauderdale

Douglas Elliman is now handling sales and marketing for the remaining unsold units in Riva in East Fort Lauderdale, taking over for One Sotheby’s International Realty.

Riva, developed by Bradley Deckelbaum’s Premier Developers, has 30 condos, or 30 percent of its units, unsold, according to a press release. The 100-unit, 15-story building which overlooks the Middle River in Fort Lauderdale, is completed and residents have already moved in, said Jay Parker, CEO of Douglas Elliman’s Florida brokerage.

Parker said he believes the developer decided to switch brokerages because it wanted a “fresh set of eyes” and a brokerage with a strong national reach. “We are looking to drive buyers from across state lines,” he said.

Amid the condo slowdown in South Florida, projects are increasingly switching brokerages in an attempt to boost sales of unsold inventory. Last week, ISG took over the remaining condo sales at Brickell City Centre’s Reach and Rise from Fortune International Realty and One Sotheby’s. Neither firm opted to rebid on the project.

Parker said that he expects the buyers of the remaining units at Riva to be domestic, either from South Florida, the Northeast, or from elsewhere in the U.S. and from Canada — rather than international buyers. “We feel the Fort Lauderdale market has exploded and is appealing to different audiences,” Parker said.

Daniel de la Vega, president of One Sotheby’s International Realty’s, the brokerage that launched sales for Riva in August 2015, said he was proud of his team’s work with the project, which is in an underdeveloped area of Fort Lauderdale. He said buyers of the units were both domestic and international.

Falkanger Snyder Martineau & Yates designed the building at 1180 North Federal Highway, where amenities include a 400-foot riverwalk and a private dock, a water taxi, water sports center with a private dock and a spa.

Other amenities include a 40,000-square-foot club deck on the fourth floor with a 7,000-square-foot gym, a 2,500-square-foot club room, a 1,500-square-foot kitchen, private wine lockers, a dog park and a lap pool.

The project secured a $65 million construction loan from New York-based Madison Realty Capital in May 2017. Prices range from two-bedroom units priced from the $700s to penthouses starting at $2 million.

Nearby projects in Fort Lauderdale include 321 at Water’s Edge, which closed on a $26 million construction loan in January. The developer, SobelCo, broke ground on the 11-story, 23-unit building earlier this month with a projected completion date of early 2019. Douglas Elliman took over sales of the boutique waterfront condo project at 321 North Birch Road last year from Engel & Völkers.