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By the end of this year, the bayfront site where The Miami Herald now stands will be reduced to vacant land ready for redevelopment.
With casino gambling on the back burner, Genting is ready to make a commitment to Miami and move ahead with a scaled-down development plan that will start to take shape immediately after the Herald moves out in May.
“We’ve decided to go with a phased approach,” said Thompson, whose career included more than a decade as an executive with the Related Group. “That seems to be more conducive with what’s acceptable in Miami. You start out with the waterfront property and that improves the value across everything else. Then you stay fluid based on what’s happening in the marketplace.”
By the end of this year, Genting expects to sign an operating agreement with a luxury hotelier of at least four-star caliber, Thompson said. In 2014, marketing is likely to begin on the sale of two buildings of luxury condominiums, each with several hundred units.
The preliminary plans are far more modest than the grandiose $3.8 billion project the Malaysian conglomerate originally unveiled in 2011. The original design would have included a curvilinear design, 5,200 hotel rooms and the world’s largest casino.But efforts to change Florida law to allow resort casinos have been unsuccessful, and for now, Genting only plans to utilize less than half of the 13.9-acre site it purchased nearly two years ago for $236 million from Herald parent McClatchy Co.
Current development will be limited to the bayfront site where the Herald building now stands and the redevelopment of the historic Boulevard Shops on Biscayne Boulevard. Preliminary designs for the 5-acre Herald site call for a pedestal with three towers on top. Each condo tower will have several hundred units and a hotel will include up to 500 rooms. All elements will follow the Miami 21 zoning code, Thompson said.
“We’re not asking for anything that is not allowed,” he said. “We’re not asking for any variances or waivers. We’re not closing streets.”
Critics of the original proposal complained it was too big for the neighborhood and blocked views of Biscayne Bay. To avoid similar issues, the new plan call for two view corridors cut through the base of the structure that will allow waterfront visibility and view corridors on either side.
To help activate the waterfront, Genting is pledging to build a 50-foot wide promenade in a tiered design with three or four restaurants overlooking Biscayne Bay. Pedestrians will be able to connect from the Genting project under the Interstate-395 overpass to the new Museum Park via a boardwalk that Genting plans to build out into the bay.
To link the project with Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts and the surrounding neighborhood, Genting plans a heavily landscaped park on the south side of the project along Interstate-395. Along the northern edge will be another landscaped walkway with small retail shops.
Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado said Genting has not presented any official plans to the city. But the developer has met with city planning and zoning staff to discuss the vision, which also includes a marina to accommodate large-size boats as part of the project, Regalado said. The marina would require state approval.
“This is a step in the right direction and it will help them gain credibility by showing they are committed to downtown,” Regalado said. “We’re very happy they have come up with a plan that’s more appropriate with what’s happening downtown. I think they now understand that they need to work with the stakeholders downtown. Now they understand Miami and Florida and the way it works.”
Genting has met multiple times in recent months to discuss its plans with the leaders of the Arsht Center and the Town Square Neighborhood Development Corp, the nonprofit created to protect the interests of the Arsht Center and the surrounding area
“Genting has come around tremendously in the last year,” said Mike Eidson, Arsht Center chairman and treasurer of Town Square. “We were favorable impressed with what we saw. This is much more complementary than anything we have seen before for this site and we’ve seen it all in the last six years. This is more in line with our long range plan for the area as a place to live, work and play.”
The Arsht Center is also pleased about Genting’s plans to spend a couple million dollars to rehabilitate the historic Boulevard Shops along Biscayne Boulevard. That process that will begin this summer and is expected to take about a year, Thompson said.
Genting is in discussions with potential restaurant and nightclub tenants interested in the two-level shops, which feature dramatic high ceiling and intricate architectural details. The space could open in late 2014 or 2015 with one or two restaurants, Thompson said.
“We want to create something that’s cool and going to draw people here,” he said.
Local experts speculate the bayfront condos could go for $700 per square foot or more.
“The site dictates a certain amount of luxury,” said Alicia Cervera Lamadrid, managing partner of Cervera Real Estate. “You don’t want to much density out there.”
Genting is not expected to have any difficulty attracting a luxury hotel interested in the site, industry experts said. Likely candidates could include Fairmont Hotels, Waldorf Astoria, W Hotels, Sofitel, Virgin Hotels, Westin and many of the luxury Asian brands.
“The Miami hotel market has never been hotter,” said Max Comess, a director with Miami office of HFF, who specializes in the hotel market. “There’s not a single brand who is not knocking on our door trying to find opportunities to get into this market.”
Genting won’t name hotels candidates for the Herald site. For now, the company is spending close to $15 million to renovate the ballrooms, lobby, pool and the nearly 600-rooms at the Hilton Hotel at the Omni, which it also purchased. The project will be completed by next year.
Genting has no current plans for the Omni’s vacant former retail space. But the company this month signed the Continental Real Estate Companies to help lease 250,000 square feet of vacant office space at the Omni.
After the Herald moves out in May, Genting will hire contractors to begin removing asbestos from the building, a process that will take a few months, Thompson said.
Genting hasn’t decided yet whether it will implode the Herald building or bulldoze it, Thompson said. Either way, the process will take several months. By the end of 2013, Genting plans to begin rebuilding the seawall along the bay.
While some have questioned whether Genting would sell the property after it lost its bid for casino gambling in the state Legislature last year, Genting remains committed to the area. The company has had its share of offers for the Herald site over the last year, but turned them down, Thompson said.
“They’re still very committed to Miami,” he said. “They love Miami and they think it’s a great, long-term play. It falls right into their broader plan.”
Genting is launching a small cruise ship to ferry people to its new casino in Bimini.
by:Â Shaun BevanÂ
Reporter-South Florida Business Journal Email  | LinkedIn  | Twitter  | Google+
The ship ferrying passengers from Miami to Genting Group's casino resort on Bimini will create about 800 jobs, the company said Friday.
The ship, which could open any day now, will move about 1,500 passengers to Bimini and back twice daily, and Genting chairmanKT Lim said the process will create at least 100 jobs at PortMiami, 300 on the ship and 400 in Bimini, the Sun Sentinel reports
The ship has 23 tables for blackjack, roulette, craps and baccarat and 135 slot machines,according to the Sentinel. The ship's sports book is expected to open July 28. On the Bimini island, Genting's Resort World Bimini has about 15 tables and 135 slots.
The company plans to offer two trips a day with the first leaving in the morning at 9 a.m. and returning at 7 p.m. The second trip will leave at 9 p.m. and return at 5 a.m. Tickets start at $49.
Lim also said the port will receive around $6 million guaranteed annually, for a total of $60 million over the initial 10 years of the contract.
Shaun Bevan covers tourism, hospitality, retail and restaurants.
SFBJ: Swire Expands Brickell CityCenter with Massive Land Purchase
Swire wins deal on 700 Brickell Avenue land with $65M bid.
Enlarge
Oscar Pedro Musibay, reporter and Brian Bandell, senior reporter
Swire Properties won the heated bidding for the 700 Brickell site in Miami for $65 million, according to sources who asked not to be named.
The property was sent to auction by its owners. After three calls for final offers, Swire won the contract by besting the bids of Related Group and Fortune International, according to a source.
Swire was not immediately available for comment.
Robert Given, Gerard Yetming and Christian Lee of CBRE and Jay Caplin of Steelbridge Capital brokered the transaction. No one was immediately available for comment.
In the past, real estate experts have conjectured that the property could be developed as a luxury hotel with a condominium serviced by the hotel. The fact that Fortune and Related were interested indicates that residential would likely work on the site.
The 700 Brickell Ave. site had been home to Northern Trust bank, which is relocating to nearby 600 Brickell, and was home to Miami Today, whose building has been demolished.
The site was marketed on behalf of Northern Trust and the Brickell family trust, which share control of the site, according to sources who asked not to be named.
About to turn 87, veteran Miami developer has no plans to retire
July 03, 2013 01:00PMÂ
By Emily Schmall
Tibor Hollo
Tibor Hollo is chairman and president of Florida East Coast Realty. The developer of Brickell’s first high-rise tower, Rivergate Plaza, Hollo is currently evaluating plans for Villa Magna, a condo and hotel project on Biscayne Bay in Brickell that was postponed during the fallout from Miami’s real estate crash in 2008.
When and where were you born?
July 13, 1927, in Hungary.
Where did you grow up?
In Hungary and France. I was not quite 14 when I went into the [concentration] camps. [Auschwitz] was liberated a few days before the end of the war. I was just 17.
When did you move to the U.S.?
How did you get into real estate?
I was an architect by profession and I couldn’t get a job, so I worked for a contractor for a little while, and then I decided I would like to be a contractor myself, so I started a business with $274 I had saved. Our first client was Grays Steamship, repairing piers on the East River.
How did you land in Miami?
I was there in 1956 and I liked it very much. I had to be at work for the U.S. Air Force at Cape Canaveral. I had a wonderful year as a contractor — the space industry was booming — and made lots of money. I decided that if I were a developer, I could pick my own venue. I picked Miami.
What do you remember about Miami when you first arrived?
If you left the office after 5 o’clock, you saw three people rolling up the sidewalks. The city was eerie; it was left alone until the next morning when the sun hit it again. They didn’t want to be caught dead downtown past 5.
In 2009, after the real estate market crashed, you agreed to lease the site of Villa Magna, which was approved in 2004, to the city for three years for one dollar per year. Now that the three years have passed, what are your plans for the site?
That time has passed and we are now concentrating on the development of the site. We are just analyzing the market now and deciding on the proper use.
You have seen plenty of ups and downs in the Miami real estate market over the years. Was the 2008 collapse like anything you’d seen before?
These things are more or less all the same, but this last bust lasted longer than the rest because of external forces. It wasn’t only indigenous to the U.S. It also involved Europe and the problems in Europe; Greece, Spain, Portugal, France. If China sneezes, we catch a big cold. We are now starting to have the effects of the global economy, and I think that elongated the problem.
Your career has spanned 64 years. Any plans to retire?
Well, in my company so far 13 people have retired, and all but one retired very poorly, dying within three to five years. Those are pretty bad odds. You need to have your mind working, not just reading a book but also by being creative in your thinking, and I believe that keeps me going.
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Economists say Whole Foods does for real estate what it does for arugula — convince people to pay higher prices.
Homebuyers choose neighborhoods because of the low crime rate and good public schools – but an equally big factor is the presence of a brand like Whole Foods, real estate analysts say. Gabriel says an upscale supermarket like Whole Foods is part of a “desirable basket of amenities” that homebuyers take into account. “This can be reflected in the bidding of prices of houses in those areas,” he says. The store may be a welcoming marker to younger professionals, he says.
And economists say once one big chain like Whole Foods moves in, other businesses and commercial offices may follow. The arrival of a specialty retailer implies “substantial” socio-economic research and due-diligence by the company, says Patrick O’Keefe, director of economic research at J.H. Cohn consultants in Roseland, N.J. “It would bolster confidence in a community, add to its attractiveness and… boost prices at least a bit.”
But once Whole Foods sets up shop, other say it may be too late to get a jump on the property market. At worst, says O’Keefe, “it’s probably like chicken soup, the cure-for-all-ills: it can’t hurt.”
If you ask Whole Foods why it’s breaking ground on a store in Midtown Detroit this month, it’ll say it wants to be part of “an incredible community” and “make natural foods available to everyone.”
“Whole Foods will move into neighborhoods that, at first glance you think, why are they moving there?” says Bill Reid, a principal at the Portland, Ore., land-use consultancy Johnson Reid. “But they’re confident in their numbers.”
The company is so good at the real-estate game that it has spawned a catchphrase, the Whole Foods Effect, a phenomenon Detroit is clearly banking on — the developer of the site is receiving $4.2 million to build there. That figure suggests city leaders believe that Whole Foods is a force unto itself that can give a neighborhood the escape velocity it needs to break free of its doldrums. Are they right?
Whether the Whole Foods Effect is real, or the company is just extremely good at slipping into areas that would have gone upscale anyway, has never been directly quantified. But evidence suggests that Whole Foods can accelerate gentrification in particular ways. A new Whole Foods may not cause property values to shoot up on its own, but it can set into motion a series of events that change neighborhoods.
Take Gowanus, a windswept, post-industrial section of Brooklyn, N.Y., that’s home to a few bars and art spaces but is essentially a no man’s land sandwiched between the tonier neighborhoods of Park Slope and Carroll Gardens. Though Whole Foods announced in February it would open a 56,000-square-foot store there, Jim Cornell, senior vice president at Corcoran Group Real Estate, said prices in the neighborhood didn’t budge. “What [the announcement] did do, however, is give Gowanus, which already has a burgeoning arts and entertainment scene, additional credibility as a place to live,” he says. Fully half of his potential buyers have asked about the Whole Foods.
This “seal of approval” quality is Whole Foods’ Midas touch; as with streetcar tracks, potential gentrifiers see it as something tangible that certifies a neighborhood as a quality buy. And not just residents; businesses, too, look to Whole Foods as a disciplined pioneer that does its homework. (The retailer is debt-free, growing steadily and has 50 new stores in the pipeline.) Sue Mosey, president of Detroit’s community development organization Midtown Inc. and a key player in bringing Whole Foods to Detroit, is hoping other businesses follow. “We definitely feel that just the signal that there’s a quality national operation moving in will interest other businesses,” she says.
But it’s not just what Whole Foods signifies — it’s the evidence of success that it generates. “Before a Whole Foods goes in, if there’s not much private investment in that district, there’s no data for developers to look at,” says Reid. A publicly traded behemoth is a data-generating machine. “You can go to their annual report and see how many customers they’re getting, how much traffic,” which lures other potential developers. And those other developers can bring Whole Foods’ numbers to a lender to get a loan. “To a lender and a developer, those are bankable numbers,” says Reid. “They’re as good as gold for a business.”
Which brings us back to how Whole Foods picks the locations where it can get those good numbers. Its most basic criterion is reportedly 200,000 people, a good portion of them college educated, living within a 20-minute drive. Amanda Musilli, the company’s Detroit Community Liaison, demurs when asked to elaborate, saying only that Midtown is “a community that’s going through a transformation right now.” About that, she’s absolutely right. The average household income of new home buyers in Midtown Detroit is now nearly $113,788, the highest in the city. And the neighborhood is facing a housing shortage (a miracle in Detroit), thanks to financial incentives offered to residents who move there. There’s also the $33,000-a-year College for Creative Studies nearby, packed with free-range foodies. If Whole Foods can succeed anywhere in Detroit, it’s here.
If it does, property values could eventually rise significantly. An exhaustive 2007 study by Johnson Reid quantified the effects that individual urban amenities have on home prices. Using hedonic modeling, it found that a specialty grocer will increase surrounding home prices by an average of 17.5 percent, more than bookstores, bike shops or gyms (with the caveat, of course, that this varies greatly depending on the situation — in the instances studied, the increases ranged widely from 6 to 29 percent).
But wait — I thought Whole Foods doesn’t raise real-estate prices. Not in isolation, and not right away. But like the retailer’s potential to attract residents and businesses, the Whole Foods Effect isn’t caused by the store itself, it’s caused by the events it sets into motion. And one thing Whole Foods does is stay open later than a lot of the other shops around it, laying the groundwork for expanding the length of that neighborhood’s day.
“What something like a movie theater or a Whole Foods does is it creates an extended-hours district,” says Reid. “Lots of downtowns close up shop at 6, but there are certain amenities that can make a downtown go from being a 10-hour thing to a 16-hour thing.” When this happens, evening foot traffic arrives, and new types of business can thrive. When Whole Foods moved onto P Street in Washington, D.C., 13 years ago, the only nightlife on the block was a divey (and awesome) rock club called the Vegas Lounge. The Lounge is still there, but it’s since been joined by a popular burger joint called Stoney’s, a “food-to-fork” locavore restaurant called Logan Tavern that owns a farm 30 miles south of the city, a Starbucks (open till 8 p.m.), a coffeehouse-slash-bar called Commissary and several retail stores, all squeezed onto the same block as Whole Foods.
Once evening-oriented development starts attracting people from outside the neighborhood, the area acquires what realtors call the “dwell factor,” a fancy way of saying it gets used in multiple ways. When we talk about the value of mixed-use neighborhoods, we’re often thinking of physical attributes — housing, retail, parks — but you could just as easily think of “mixed-use” in terms of time: school and work during the day, shopping in the afternoon and evening, restaurants, bars and entertainment well into the night.
Could a Safeway gentrify a neighborhood like Midtown Detroit? Could a Wal-Mart? Probably not in the same way. Not only do those brands not lure the high rollers that Whole Foods does, they don’t create an upscale version of what University of Chicago sociology professor Terry Nichols Clark calls the urban “scenescape,” the theory that public space is an idea as much as a physical place. Urban amenities have a multiplying effect on their immediate area — a Whole Foods is more likely to end up in a neighborhood with similar amenities, and vice versa. Jamaica Plain has had a big supermarket since 1964 called the Hi-Lo, known for its Latin-American items, which Whole Foods replaced. But the Hi-Lo didn’t gentrify the neighborhood — J.P. didn’t really start changing until the 1990s. That’s because Hi-Lo and Whole Foods aren’t just stores, they’re ideas that lead to similar ideas, and attract people who identify with those ideas in cyclical fashion.
Whether you think this is a good thing or a bad thing depends on what you believe your neighborhood needs: sustained affordability, or a gentrifying shot in the arm. Midtown Detroit is hoping for the latter. Unlike Jamaica Plain, where a vocal group of activists fought the new Whole Foods, opposition in Detroit has been virtually nonexistent. In fact, one of the most common concerns has been that Whole Foods will give the city a half-size store. (The company swears that it won’t.) Because just in practical terms, the city needs more places to buy groceries: Detroiters spend $200 million at suburban grocers each year because the city itself doesn’t have enough stores. But this is about more than having a supermarket. It’s about the gravitational force of a single establishment. In 2008, a gourmet grocery store called Zaccaro’s opened in Midtown — and closed less than a year later. Time will tell whether truffle oil will have better luck in the Motor City this time around.
READ ORIGINAL ARTICLE HERE
Will Doig writes the Dream City column for SalonMORE WILL DOIG.
Recently, rumors surfaced from a local blog that Whole Foods is considering opening a store on the 600 block of H Street NE, Washington DC.  If true, it would mark another major milestone in the ongoing redevelopment of the H Street corridor.  It also spurred me to think about what many now call the “Whole Foods Effect" on real estate and neighborhood development.
Whole Foods as Bellwether


There is little question that Whole Foods has consistently has been able to identify neighborhoods undergoing rapid upswings — Logan Circle Washington DC, Harlem New York, Jamaica Plains Boston, South Hills Pittsburgh, Central West End St. Louis, and soon Midtown Detroit. The retailer’s uncanny ability to open new locations just at a neighborhood’s inflection point is a testament to their market due diligence and an envy of most companies, investors, and governments.


Having personally negotiated with Whole Foods on development projects, I can tell you first hand that they take an unusual approach when evaluating a market. Unlike the typical retailer, and contrary to what you might expect, Whole Foods does not focus on household income but rather on education levels in a potential trade area. They usually require a minimum population of 200,000 with college educations. One of their brokers once told me, “Look, I don’t care what the incomes are; show me there are enough people there with degrees." If you work at a nonprofit, a yoga studio, or in government, but still shop at Whole Foods, then you know that the Whole Foods customer is not defined by his or her salary.
But what does Whole Foods do to amplify growth?
In our research we found only one rigorous analysis of what amenities like Whole Foods do for growth. The study found that property values increase on average 17.5% after a specialty grocery store opens nearby, although specific amounts ranged per location from 5.8% to 29.3%. There is no doubt Whole Foods is a valuable amenity for local residents and workers, but in some ways the study makes a point that anybody in the real estate industry (or with a little common sense) would take as a given.
“Anchors" Drive Real Estate Economics
In the real estate industry, the term “anchor” is used to describe a business such as a department store, grocery store, cinema, or other major traffic generator like a convention center. An anchor creates value for the surrounding area because it is considered a destination, meaning that it will draw customers from significant distances coming specifically for that business. This large customer base will often shop, eat, and spend money at the surrounding locations, making proximity to an anchor extremely valuable.
This value creation can be seen very clearly in looking at a typical U.S. shopping mall. Small stores, called “in-lines," like J.Crew, Victoria’s Secret, or Starbucks, may pay $45 per square foot in rent each year. In that same mall the “anchor" department stores would probably only pay $5 per square foot in rent (or potentially $0).
Property Economics - Small Stores vs. Anchors

Not only do most anchors pay virtually no rent, but some are so highly valuable to larger developments that property owners will actually provide millions of dollars to cover the cost of construction (i.e., a subsidy). Companies like Nordstrom have been paid as much as $40 million to open in a new location because of how valuable the surrounding space becomes to the developer in terms of leasability.Â
In large-scale private development, the anchor is heavily subsidized by the surrounding real estate economics.
A shopping mall is the suburban equivalent to an urban commercial corridor. For DC residents, think of places like Reston Town Center and Tyson’s Corner Mall as the equivalent of Logan Circle or Georgetown. However, unlike a suburban mall development, most of the economic benefits of having an anchor do not accrue directly to the single property owner but instead to the hundred or potentially thousands of people who own property in the surrounding neighborhood. Nearby space becomes easier to lease at higher rents. And not just retail space but also residential and office properties see a great deal of increase in value.
The Bottom Line
Whole Foods is an anchor and one of the best there is. A new location on H Street would bring tons of new consumer traffic to the area, which in the real estate sector is good—it means many more customers for local businesses. In turn, this leads to a plethora of new stores opening, making the neighborhood a more desirable place to live, and ultimately increasing the value of all property in the neighborhood.
If the rumors turn out to be true and Whole Foods does come to H Street, be sure to thank the developer. It will likely cost them a pretty penny, and everyone else will get to share in the benefits.
What would you think if Whole Foods came to H Street? Leave a comment below.
NY Times: Miami’s Condo Market Rebounds, Stoking a Building Boom
By TERRY PRISTIN
Published: April 30, 201
MIAMI — Of the 22,000 condos created in downtown Miami during the boom years, only about 600 remain unsold — thanks mainly to an influx of Latin American investors seeking a safe haven for their money.
Diana Zalucky for The New York Times
The construction of Brickell CityCentre in Miami, which will have 800 condos.
Developers are reacting to the unexpectedly swift condo recovery in a predictable way: they are building more condos.
The Miami construction boom — with its own local idiosyncrasies — comes after a broad revival in the real estate market.
As demand rises and supply shrinks, cities around the country are experiencing a residential rebound.
In February, national home prices jumped by 9.3 percent over the same month a year ago, the highest growth rate since May 2006, according to data released on Tuesday by the S&P/Case-Shiller index, which measures 20 major cities.
Miami fared better than most, with home values rising by 10.4 percent. The local condo market, which is not counted in the Case-Shiller data, is equally robust. Prices of condos in downtown Miami increased to $440 a square foot in the last quarter, compared with $400 in the same quarter a year ago, according to Condo Vultures, a local brokerage.
With foreign buyers scooping up properties, developers are trying to capitalize on the demand.
In the last two years, 25 new condo projects have been announced in the downtown area, although it is far from certain they will all be completed. Within sight of Brickell CityCentre alone, eight residential buildings are under construction, including three being developed by the Related Group, an affiliate of the Related Companies of New York.
“We seem to be on the cusp of another boom,” said Peter Zalewski, a principal at Condo Vultures. “The question is whether this will be a controlled boom or another out-of-control boom, which is what we’re known for.”
The developers of Brickell CityCentre, Swire Properties, a division of the Hong Kong conglomerate with deep roots in Miami, are trying to balance the various market forces. While the residential market is looking healthier, demand for office space is still weak.
Swire also sees a strong need for high-end shopping in the rapidly growing downtown neighborhood. The company’s partner in the 500,000-square-foot retail component at Brickell CityCentre is the Whitman family, the owners of Bal Harbour Shops, a hugely successful open-air shopping center just north of Miami Beach.
On the office side, Swire is remaining cautious. The vacancy rate in the city’s financial district is well into the double digits at roughly 16.7 percent, according to CBRE, a real estate services firm.
Swire hopes eventually to include an office tower with 750,000 square feet, but for now, the office component of the project will contain only 120,000 square feet. Diana L. Parker, a senior vice president at CBRE, said the new office space would be available just as a number of leases downtown were expiring. “Their timing is impeccable,” she said.
The plans for Brickell CityCentre reflect Miami’s desire to bring its downtown in line with trends occurring in business districts across the country, where developers are being encouraged to provide convenience to public transportation, street-level retail and underground parking. Occupying four blocks, the Brickell CityCentre is next to the 8th Street station serving Metromover, a free transit line that circulates downtown.
Stephen L. Owens, president of Swire, said his company had been looking at the location, known as West Brickell, since 2006 when two of the sites were listed for sale at $110 million. Two years later, Swire paid $41 million for those properties, which were vacant except for several dozen 100-year-old oak trees. (The trees were uprooted and transported by barge to Museum Park on the other side of the Miami River.) Subsequently, Swire added to its assemblage by buying the Brickell Tennis Center and 799 Brickell Plaza.
That gave Swire 9.1 acres — slightly more than it needed to qualify as a special area under Miami’s new zoning code. This designation enabled the developer to work with the city to create a master plan that includes improvements to the streets and sidewalks.
Officials are allowing Swire to build two bridges to make it easier for shoppers to travel from one building to another. These bridges will house shops and cafes, Mr. Owens said. “The biggest challenge was connectivity,” he said. Many urban planners, however, frown on such bridges because they draw foot traffic away from sidewalk.
Swire also won approval to build something rare in Miami — an underground parking lot with 1,600 spaces for the project’s commercial components. Shoppers will of course have the option of taking the Metromover and getting off at the 8th Street station, which Swire is also renovating.
Though Miami is not exactly known for its public transportation, ridership on both Metromover and Metrorail, an elevated train that connects suburbs north and south of Miami, has been steadily increasing — up 5.5 percent and 11.3 percent in February over the same period in the previous year.
The increased usage, in part, comes after an influx of young residents to downtown. The recent condo boom was driven primarily by cash-paying Latin American investors who either use the apartments occasionally or rent them out, often to young professionals working nearby, said Mr. Zalewski of Condo Vultures.
Swire’s focus on high-end shopping also happened to coincide with a new direction in the Whitmans’ business. Since Bal Harbour Shops opened in 1965, the family had luxury shopping almost exclusively to itself and fought strenuously to keep tenants from opening other stores in the area. The Whitmans say sales last year at Bal Harbour Shops — their lone shopping center — were $2,810 a square foot, compared to a national average of $526.
But more recently, several longtime tenants, including Louis Vuitton, Cartier and Hermès, have decamped to the Design District across Biscayne Bay. Luxury shops are also opening at Aventura Mall, just north of Miami.
With the competitive landscape changing, the Whitmans decided to expand by investing in Brickell CityCentre. “We see that area as a strong residential community with a thriving tourist market that is only getting stronger,” said Matthew Whitman Lazenby, the operating partner of Bal Harbour Shops and a grandson of the company’s founder, Stanley Whitman.
The shopping center is being designed so that shoppers will feel the breezes off Biscayne Bay, just as they do at Bal Harbour. A glass trellis will “protect you from the outside elements but let you have a natural al fresco experience,” Mr. Owens said.
“This will be our Rockefeller Center,” said Robert Kaplan, a principal with the Miami Beach office of Ackman-Ziff, a New York-based mortgage brokerage, referring to the Brickell CityCentre. “We don’t have anything like that here.”
READ ORIGINAL ARTICLE HERE
A version of this article appeared in print on May 1, 2013, on page B1 of the New York edition with the headline: Miami’s Condo Market Rebounds, Stoking a Fresh Building Boom.
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