Walter Defortuna, brother of Miami developer and broker Edgardo Defortuna, is proposing a 1,010-foot tall mixed-use tower in Brickell. The plan is the latest in a growing rush of supertall projects in Miami.
The 81-story building would consist of 560 residences, 84 hotel keys and a 1,200-space parking podium on the 1.2-acre site at 1414 Brickell Avenue and adjacent lot at 1421 South Miami Avenue, according to a filing by an entity managed by Walter Defortuna to Miami-Dade County submitted this month. Designed by Arquitectonica, the tower also would have more than 117,000 square feet of offices and 6,000 square feet of ground-floor retail.
The proposal doesn’t specify whether the residences, which will average at 1,100 square feet, will be condos or apartments.
Defortuna, through the entity 1414 Brickell, bought the site for $5.6 million in 2002, according to records. It consists of a pair of one-story retail buildings home to restaurants Barsecco, Paperfish Sushi and Salty Flame, as well as Blume Nightclub.
Edgardo Defortuna, founder and CEO of Miami-based preeminent brokerage and development firm Fortune International Group, says he isn’t involved in the supertall project. Walter Defortuna controls the site and “will do something on his own,” Edgardo Defortuna said through a spokesperson.
His brother Walter could not be reached for comment.
Walter previously led Fortune International Realty, which was part of Fortune International Group, but is less involved now. “He wants to enjoy life, and I’m totally in agreement with that,” Edgardo Defortuna told The Real Deal this year.
The development site is in the Metromover subzone of the rapid transit zone, a Miami-Dade designation that allows bigger projects due to their proximity to Metromover stations. The developer is asking for a pre-application meeting, which is generally done to gauge county staff’s input on a project before an official application is filed.
To reach supertall status, a tower must be at least 984 feet. In Miami, towers are capped at 1,049 feet by aviation authorities because the city is in a flight path.
For nearly a decade, developers have been aiming to surpass this threshold, but Miami’s tallest building remains the 900-foot Panorama in Brickell. The Hollo family’s Florida East Coast Realty completed it in 2018.
Plans for supertalls ramped up in the South Florida real estate boom of the past four years. The city’s first, the 1,049-foot Waldorf Astoria Hotel & Residences in downtown Miami, is under construction. Developer PMG is partnering on the project with Canadian private equity firm Greybrook, Cyprus-based Mohari Hospitality, Aventura-based S2 Hospitality and Hilton.
Also in downtown Miami, Florida East Coast Realty plans to replace the 19-story office building at 100 South Biscayne Boulevard with a supertall.
In Brickell, billionaire hedge funder Ken Griffin is proposing a 1,032-foot tower with 1.3 million square feet of offices, including a headquarters for his Citadel and Citadel Securities, as well as a 212-key hotel, restaurants for 915 guests and a spa. The 54-story project would rise at 1201 Brickell Bay Drive.
Defortuna’s proposed project would be surrounded by two other planned towers. To the west, Mast Capital is developing the 80-story, 397-condo Cipriani Residences tower at 1420 South Miami Avenue. To the south, developer Yamal Yidios’ Ytech plans a 70-story, 189-condo tower at 1428 Brickell Avenue.