80th, 81st New Condo Towers Proposed For South Florida Coastal Region

Developers are proposing a pair of unrelated new condo towers - Echo and Puerto Aventura - in the city of Aventura in Northeast Miami-Dade County, and in the process have boosted the total number of planned buildings to 81 in South Florida since the real estate crash began in 2007, according to a new report from CondoVultures.com. 

With the newly announced Echo and Puerto Aventura projects to be located just south of Aventura Mall, more than 11,675 condo residences have been proposed for the tricounty South Florida region of Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties as of Oct. 31, 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 (scheduled to top off on Nov. 9, 2012); 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.   

Beginning the week of Oct. 15, 2012, the Condo Vultures® Market Intelligence Report™ plans to publish 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 Aventura, the proposed 11-story Echo project is slated to be developed on a vacant 6.5-acre site fronting the Intracoastal Waterway in the 3200 block of Northeast 188th Street, according to city of Aventura and Miami-Dade Property Appraiser records.

Plans call for up to 190 units to be located across the street from the nine-year-old Aventura City Of Excellence School (ACES) charter program that boasts a student body of 1,000 children who are attending kindergarten through eighth grade, according to government records.  

To the south of the proposed Echo project, a developer is proceeding with plans to build the 25-story Puerto Aventura project on the 2700 block of Northeast 185th Street, according to government records.  

Plans call for the Puerto Aventura project to feature 205 units just south of the Loehmann's Fashion Island retail center, according to government records.

The site plan status for both proposed projects - Echo and the Puerto Aventura - are classified as in the "review process," according to government records last updated in October 2012.

Fueled by investors primarily from overseas, less than 3,400 new condo units remain unsold from a supply of nearly 49,000 units created since 2003 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 June 30, 2012, according to a recent 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.