2 New Oceanfront Condo Towers With 440 Units Proposed For Miami Beach

A pair of developers in unrelated deals are proposing to build two new Miami Beach condo projects - the Deauville Hotel Beach Resort and the Residences At The Miami Beach Edition - with nearly 440 units combined on separate oceanfront sites, and in the process have boosted the total number of proposed units to more than 13,315 in South Florida since the real estate crash began in 2007, according to a new report from CondoVultures.com. 

With the two new proposed condo projects slated for the east side of Collins Avenue, at least 88 condo towers have been announced for the tricounty South Florida region of Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties as of Dec. 5, 2012, according to the Preconstruction Condo Projects list compiled by the licensed Florida brokerage CVR Realty™.

Some five years after the South Florida condo market began to stall, one new tower has already been completed in the tricounty region and 12 other highrises - Aventura's Bellini At Williams Island; Greater Downtown Miami's 1100 Millecento Residences, Brickell Citicentre (two towers), BrickellHouse, and MyBrickell projects; Hollywood's Apogee Beach; Key Biscayne's Oceana (two towers); Palm Beach County's 4001 North Ocean project; and Sunny Isles Beach's Mansions At Acqualina and Regalia - are under construction as the post-crash development era gains momentum, according to a recent CondoVultures.com report.

CondoVultures.com is scheduled to profile condo trends in the third quarter of 2012 in the seven largest coastal condo markets in South Florida.   

Since the week of Oct. 15, 2012, the Condo Vultures® Market Intelligence Report™ has been publishing a seven-part series analyzing new condo sales trends in Greater Downtown Miami, South Beach, Sunny Isles Beach, Hollywood / Hallandale Beach, Downtown Fort Lauderdale and the Beach, Boca Raton / Deerfield Beach, and Downtown West Palm Beach and Palm Beach Island.  

In Miami Beach, plans call for the proposed Residences At The Miami Beach Edition project - by Ian Schrager of Delano South Beach Hotel fame - to feature an 11-story condo tower with 26 units as part of resort complex with at least three towers on a 4.2-acre site located on the east and west side of the 2900 block of Collins Avenue in Miami Beach, according to the Miami Herald. 

In June 2010, the developer - a partnership with ties to Marriott International in Bethesda, Md. - paid $57.5 million for the former Seville Hotel that was constructed in 1955, according to Miami Dade Property Appraisal records.

Prior to South Florida's condo crash, plans called for the former Seville Hotel site to be redeveloped as a Ritz-Carlton resort, according to a CondoVultures.com report. 

To the north on the barrier island, plans have been proposed to build a 20-story tower with 412 condo-hotel units on the existing two-story retail center located immediately south of the historic 1956 Deauville Hotel at 6701 Collins Ave., according to city of Miami Beach records. 

The developer - Deauville Associates LLC - is seeking government approval to build the Deauville Hotel Beach Resort condo-hotel tower instead of a previously approved plan for a 150-unit condo tower that was proposed during the last South Florida real estate boom, according to Miami Beach records.

Fueled by investors primarily from overseas, about 94 percent of the nearly 49,000 units created since 2003 have sold in South Florida’s seven largest coastal markets of Greater Downtown Miami, South Beach, Sunny Isles Beach, Hollywood / Hallandale Beach, Downtown Fort Lauderdale and the Beach, Boca Raton / Deerfield Beach, and Downtown West Palm Beach and Palm Beach Island as of Sept. 30, 2012, according to a new CondoVultures.com report.  

A majority of the newly proposed South Florida condo units are not expected to be completed until 2014 when the unsold developer inventory from South Florida's last real estate boom and bust is projected to be sold. 

It is unclear how many of the other proposed towers could get built in the short term as construction financing is challenging - and expensive - to secure, industry watchers said.  

To overcome the obvious financing hurdle, most of the newly proposed projects are requiring prospective buyers to commit to deposits - to be paid in phases - of as much as 80 percent of the preconstruction contract price, industry watchers said.

During the most recent South Florida condo boom, preconstruction buyers were generally asked for deposits of about 20 percent, industry watchers said.