“It’s the Market” Says Carlos Rosso on Auberge Miami Delay Until at Least Late 2018
Scene from the Auberge Miami Launch Party at the the project’s sales center. Sean McCaughan.
Auberge Miami is being delayed until at least late 2018, and they have offered lease extensions to at least one tenant of the existing structure on the site until the middle of that year. According to Related’s condo division president Carlos Rosso, who spoke to Miami Condo Investments, “it’s the market.” Surprised? Probably not.
“We are selling, and as soon as we get to our (desired) presales we will start construction. The sales center is open” Rosso said. In April the Related Group reported that reservations at the first of the three planned towers at Auberge Miami were at 20 percent, while the more recent ISG second quarter market report placed sales at a more modest 15 percent, with both presale numbers reflecting the significantly slumping real estate market. As ISG Principal Craig Studnicky, whose firm has a partnership with Related, told the Real Deal, “It’s not terribly surprising” that Related would chose to delay the gargantuan condo project by a year, or more. (The first tower is planned to have 290 units, while the while the whole thing was designed with a whopping 1400) “Related will keep pushing” until they hit the right sales number, Studnicky said.
And, as Rosso basically confirmed, it looks like that’s exactly what Related is doing, according to leasing emails leaked to The Real Deal for some of the existing commercial space on the site, offering an extension to a current tenant until late August 2018. This means that instead of the originally planned 2017 groundbreaking, they likely don’t plan on building a thing there until at least late 2018. Of course, that also depends on how sales go from here.
Boutique Townhouse Project ‘One Bay’ Underway in Micro-Hood East of Design District
On the far side of Albert Pallot Park from the offramp to the Julia Tuttle Causeway, nestled in a little-known micro-neighborhood east of the Design District with a variety of architectural styles and some cute surprises, a townhouse development called One Bay is currently under construction. With unit sizes ranging from 800 to 2500 interior air conditioned square feet, all units come with private entrances leading onto a private road going through the center of the community. Most also come with private garages and private roof decks, except for some single story units. There’s a community pool, and walking distance to the park and the Design District.
Subtropical Modernist Coconut Grove House by Shulman + Associates Hits the Market for $6.95M
A modernist Coconut Grove house which featured in Dwell Magazine, and which I featured on Curbed Miami, soon after completion has hit the market with a price tag of $6.95 million. The house, thick in the hammock of the Grove’s Camp Biscayne, was designed by local architect Allan Shulman of Shulman + Associates, and designed to embrace the outdoors with a reserved detachment from it. “It didn’t seem like the kind of landscape you wanted to go trudging through with your boots, but one that you wanted to observe with detachment,” Shulman told Dwell. “We were trying to emphasize how precious the landscape is.” by floating boardwalks around the very wet, sunken site, and cantilevering the living room over it. Then on the other side of the home is a much more traditional backyard, with pool and grill.
As of Yesterday, One Unit Had Closed at Centro
Photo by Lucas Lechuga.
As of yesterday, one unit had closed at Newgard Development Group’s Centro, in Downtown Miami. The condo in question is Apartment 2502, a 2-bedroom unit. Residents of Centro have begun moving in, but unsurprisingly, (because that’s just how these things go in Miami) a few months later than planned. Centro includes 352 total units.
Zaha May be Gone, but She Lives on in the Construction of One Thousand Museum, by Now Showing Off Its Spectacular Curves
One Thousand Museum, designed by the recently deceased grande dame of architecture herself Zaha Hadid, has already reached the fifteenth floor, as multiple news sources have announced. These photos are from the project’s Facebook page, which also links to plenty of those articles. That rather rudimentary floor plate count is no biggie however, because you can now finally see the structural exoskeleton coursing up around that parametric facade, supporting it from just a few key points on the exterior. In other words, every passer can finally take in the architecture. We can all now see some of what Zaha envisioned all along, in solid concrete, and that’s pretty great.
Big New Mixed-Use Project Coming to Old Channel 10 Studios Site on Biscayne Boulevard, Replacing Art School
Quadro
A 13-story building called Quadro with 198 rental apartment units and 28,000 square feet of retail space is being developed by Alta Development in the Miami Design District at 3900 Biscayne Boulevard, the former site of the Channel 10 Studios, and the current location the Miami Arts Charter School which is relocating to Wynwood. Naturally, it’s called Quadro because the building stretches from 39th to 40th Streets, although 40th Street doesn’t actually intersect with Biscayne Boulevard here (the next intersection isn’t until 50th Terrace), so that’s something…
From renderings revealed on The Next Miami, the design itself looks attractive and logical, if not particularly unique in any way. It does, however, urbanize what until now has been a rather atypical suburban stretch of Biscayne Boulevard, and it does it well. Alta partnered with the Related Group on the neighboring Baltus House, so they’re not unfamiliar with the area. Alta hired Revuelta as the design architect and Behar Font as the architect of record, although they bought the land from Nancy Karp, wife of architect Kobi Karp, a year ago for $18.4 million. Whatever anyone says about those Karps and the quality of their architecture (and I’ve said a lot), you’ve got to admit they’re pretty damn talented real estate investors.
Well, there goes one of the good ones. The Miami real estate boom of 2011-ish to 2016 must definitely really be over now that it’s started taking with it class acts such as Boulevard 57, a well-designed, contextual, and high quality building that was planned on Biscayne Boulevard and 57th Street. According to Hector Torres, chief operating officer of Unitas Development Group, who talked to The Real Deal, residential unit sales have been called off. Not according the Torres, however, who when asked by TRD said only that everything’s for sale at the right price, the entire site is being marketed for sale at $26 million. Real Deal heard that from “sources,” which probably just means a sales agent who is pissed they don’t have anything to sell there anymore.
On the positive side, the large site in the Upper Eastside might not have to sit fallow for years again, with deteriorating relics of a canceled condo project, because the ground-level retail is still on. After Kubik, planned for that spot during the last market boom, was shelved, a crane suspending a lit up (and eventually burned out) cube sat forlorn there for years. It probably got taken out of its misery by a hurricane or something. Thanks Wilma.
Torres said the retail portion of the project is moving forward and might even get ten or twenty thousand square feet larger. Lyle Chariff, who is marketing the retail, totally name dropped Trader Joe’s as a potential, or at least hoped for tenant, although the grammar is technically a bit vague on whether they are actually talking to them. They’ve had “interest from Trader Joe’s and Publix-type tenants” Chariff said. A courteous comma would have really cleared things up here, people.
The years of drama at this site (don’t even get us started on all the shit that went down when they pulled the plug on Kubik), just makes you wish some shortsighted bonehead had never demolished the beautiful old Northeast Miami Women’s Club’s Mediterranean Revival clubhouse to make it all happen. Read this excerpt about it from a Soyka Restaurant press packet:
Fun Fact: Garden Room is also meeting spot for the Northeast Miami Woman’s Club. It features an historic awning initially used by the organization in its hay day. Soyka purchased its main headquarters in the late 1990’s but insisted the group still host its meetings in the Garden Room, which they do on the third Thursday of every month between September and June.
Related Just Unveiled SLS Brickell’s Dramatically Diagonal Balcony Lights
Photo by Marcos Viñas, courtesy Instagram @anapaulacg.
The Related Group’s SLS Brickell condominium tower in the heart of Brickell is fast approaching completion, with closings comin’ up soon. How soon? According to Carlos Rosso, Related’s Luxury Condo Division President, they’re planning on September 1st. In anticipation, the tower was set ablaze last night with a dramatic outdoor lighting scheme of dominated by diagonal rows of twinkling blue dots affixed to small promontories poking out of the building’s balconies, then wrapping around the building at the corners. The effect is really very cool, although last night was a test. How did the test turn out? Well, it looks pretty great,. but as you can see a few big chunks of balcony lights stayed in the dark. Looks like someone might have to do some more testing, Christmas light style.
Photo courtesy Carlos Rosso.
Photo by Sarah Elles Boggs.
Bayfront Lot, With Plans to Rebuild Historic Mansion, Faces “Drastic Price Drop” to $4.95M
A 1920s Mediterranean Revival pile called the ‘Prescott Mansion’ used to sit on this Biscayne Bay-fronting lot in the Bayside Historic District in Miami, at 7101 NE 10th Ave. Unfortunately, it doesn’t anymore. The lot, now listed for sale after a “drastic price drop” according to agent Dora Puig to $4.95 million (a $1.5M reduction), comes with plans to rebuild the house and add a contemporary new wing with some crazy luxe amenities designed by architect Ralph Choeff. The plans for the new house include a 7,000 square foot underground garage, a huge pool, 10 bedrooms, 3 kitchens, and a private sandy beach.
