Integra Investments will launch condo sales at the start of the new year for Ocean Park Residences, a 14-story, 76-unit waterfront building planned for the northern end of Fort Lauderdale’s beach area.
Miami-based Integra had won city approval in June 2022 to build an 11-story, 54-unit condominium and a 12-story, 100-room hotel on the development site at 2851 and 2901 Northeast 9th Court. The development’s original name was Ocean Park Hotel and Residences.
But in an amended application for site plan approval, Integra opted for a bigger condominium and decided against the hotel from the original plan, which would have included 3,210 square feet for a restaurant and 825 square feet of retail space. The Fort Lauderdale City Commission unanimously approved Integra’s amended site plan at its meeting Tuesday night.
Integra, led by principals Paulo Tavares de Melo, Victor Ballestas and Nelson Stabile, expects to continue pre-construction sales of Ocean Park units for about a year and break ground in early 2026.
The switch to a condo-only development “is more market-driven than anything else,” Ballestas told The Real Deal. “If we would have had the hotel product along with the condominium product, we’re competing with a lot of the other inventory that’s coming into the market.”
Ballestas also said the condo-only development will be “much easier” to finance than a mixed-use development with a hotel. He said Integra plans to find pre-construction buyers for 40 to 50 percent of the Ocean Park units before seeking a lender to finance construction of the development.
Despite a challenging financing market nationwide, developers of South Florida condos have scored major construction loans in recent months as they can tap into buyers’ deposits to fund construction, lowering lenders’ risk. This week, Related Group, Rockpoint and Two Roads Development scored a $424 million construction loan for Rivage Residences, a planned luxury oceanfront condo project in Bal Harbour. Witkoff Group and Ari Pearl’s PPG Development scored a $273 million construction loan for Shell Bay, a mixed-use luxury condo and hotel project in Hallandale Beach. And Related Group and Integra scored a $527 million loan for their St. Regis Residences, Miami condo project in September.
One Sotheby’s International Realty will handle sales of Ocean Park units starting in January. Integra hasn’t yet set a price range for the units, which will range from 1,200 square feet to 2,200 square feet — a “medium size” compared to other condos under development in Fort Lauderdale, Ballestas said.
“Everybody seems to be going much bigger,” he said. “We are trying to create a product that there’s demand for, but not a lot of supply, which is a new product on the beachside that’s very livable … and it’s not a $4 million unit.”
State and county records show that a company controlled by Integra bought the 11-parcel, 1.26-acre development site at 2851 and 2901 Northeast 9th Court in March 2021 for $7.2 million from Esposito Enterprises of Fort Lauderdale, led by Vincenzo Esposito. The site is about a block from the ocean and has frontage on the Intracoastal Waterway just south of Hugh Taylor Birch State Park.