The developers of Waldorf Astoria Residences Miami, planned as the city’s tallest residential tower at 100 stories, are launching sales, The Real Deal has learned.
The luxury project, at 300 Biscayne Boulevard, will be the highest skyscraper south of Manhattan at 1,049 feet tall, the developers said. Property Markets Group, Greybrook Realty Partners and Hilton are partnering on the tower.
It will mark the first Waldorf Astoria development in South Florida. The building, with 360 condos and 205 hotel rooms and suites, will feature the Peacock Alley lounge, a signature restaurant, indoor and outdoor event spaces, a resort-style pool deck with cabanas, a spa and fitness center.
The building was designed as a stack of nine offset glass cubes, by architect Carlos Ott, with architect of record Sieger Suarez.
PMG, led by Kevin Maloney, Ryan Shear and Dan Kaplan, announced the Waldorf Astoria brand in 2018, but the project has been in the works since 2014.
Hilton Management Services will manage the property, according to a release. The hotel will be on the first three “cubes” of the building, and the condos will be above them.
Units will start at $1 million, and $1,100 per square foot, increasing to about $2,500 a square foot, depending on the location in the building. PMG’s in-house sales team includes Aura Aragon, Alejandra Castillo, Karine Carvalho, Daiana Quiceno and Christian Tupper.
Douglas Elliman’s Eklund | Gomes Team, led by Fredrik Eklund, Julia Spillman and John Gomes, will work with the in-house team.
Ryan Shear, a managing principal at PMG, said the launch was driven by the strong sales market. Developers have increasingly launched new South Florida condo projects this year, citing the surge in luxury home sales.
PMG and E11even Partners also launched sales of a hotel and condo tower near downtown Miami earlier this year.
“We’ve obviously been preparing for a long period of time,” Shear said. “The market turned when we launched E11even [Residences] in January. We did not expect sales to go as quickly as they did.”
Craig Studnicky, president and CEO of brokerage RelatedISG, is partnering with PMG as a consultant to the project.
Shear called it a “once-in-a-lifetime” project and expects buyers to come from all over the world, especially people who covet the Waldorf brand. “You just don’t get to build a Waldorf every day,” he said.
Construction of the tower could begin in a year, depending on sales, Shear added. It will be built next to PMG’s X Miami apartment tower, and just south of the Holiday Inn downtown Miami.
PMG Downtown Developers LLC paid $80 million, or about $900 per square foot, for the 2-acre site in November 2014.
Dino Michael, senior vice president and global head of Waldorf Astoria Hotels & Resorts, said Waldorf, which is owned by Hilton, has been trying to enter the Miami market “for quite some time.”
Developers have increasingly partnered with luxury brands in South Florida, including Porsche Design, Armani/Casa, Missoni and Aston Martin. The Related Group recently launched sales of Baccarat Miami, which will eventually include three towers at 444 Brickell Avenue. Sales for the first 75-story building start in the $800 per-square-foot range.
The tallest building in Miami currently is the 85-story Panorama Tower, a mixed-use hotel, luxury rental, office and retail building that Florida East Coast Realty completed in Brickell in 2018.
Michael said the Waldorf Astoria building will “dominate” the Miami skyline.
“What I really want is when you walk into the hotel and the residential component… you get a sense of architecture, brand and reassurance that you’re in a Waldorf Astoria,” he said.
About a year ago, Dajia US tapped Douglas Elliman to handle sales of the refurbished Waldorf Astoria in New York. Waldorf also has residential developments underway in Antigua, Dubai, Beverly Hills, and Jakarta.