After rounding a corner, I stepped on the gas pedal. This time I managed it without going off the track. The engine revved, sounding just like a Formula 1 race. I was going over 100 miles per hour — the fastest I’ve ever driven.
I had, minutes earlier, climbed into the body of an F1 car, my legs straight out in front of me, gripping an unfamiliar steering wheel. But I wasn’t really on a track. I was in the dark room in the 45,000-square-foot amenities villa at the Estates at Acqualina, a two-tower ultra-luxury condo development in Sunny Isles Beach.
I’m not Lewis Hamilton or Charles Leclerc, though both are in town this weekend for Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix, but I felt like a racing driver for a minute, minus the millions in earnings, the lifestyle and the ability to stay on the course consistently. In a simulator like this one, you feel the car vibrating when you stray from the road. It’s worse if you “flip” the car.
I was a bit dizzy after that and pulled myself out of the car. But I’d go back, though I wonder if this “amenity” is more popular with the children of unit owners rather than the unit owners themselves.
This isn’t the only new condo offering to go vroom. Developers are increasingly tapping into the hobbies and interests of their wealthy buyers, and there is lots of crossover with F1.
Developer Gil Dezer’s Porsche Design Tower is a prime example. Dezer, who has a huge car collection and has raced in the Gumball 3000 rally, was the first to build a luxury condo tower with its own car elevator and glass-encased in-unit garages. Because at that point, these cars are art, meant to be on display.
Though South Florida has a few car-branded developments, simulators don’t just show up in automobile-themed condos. For one, they’re expensive: The simulators and the cost of maintaining them is in the six figures.
Their looks vary. Some include curved monitors that fill up the room, and you can race with other people if a development has more than one.
Most of the F1 amenities are only available once a building is completed, but Michael Stern’s JDS Development Group already has a simulator at the sales center for Mercedes-Benz Places, Miami sales center in Brickell.
Nick Pérez, who leads the condo division at his family’s Miami-based Related Group, said F1’s Netflix documentary series, “Drive to Survive,” got him and his wife hooked. He compared it to the craze of golf simulators. (I tried those too, and I am a worse golfer than F1 driver.)
Related will install a F1 simulator at the planned W Pompano Beach Hotel & Residences, which it is developing with BH Group, and at its Viceroy-branded condo development in Brickell.
There’s a practical reason, in addition to F1 being “fun, energetic, thrilling,” Pérez said: “What are your guests and buyers going to do when it’s a crappy day outside?”
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Brokers, developers rally to capture Formula 1 buyers during first Miami Grand Prix