Miami World Center

Lucas… While I definitely agree that this project will change that area for ever and become a great area to live in, I don’t think there is anyway you will see any significant development starting on those sites for 5 -7 years or so with the supply of residential units there. You will probably need to wait for about 20 years for it to resemble anything close to the renderings. Remember, these deals are complex and involve lots of developers, so not easy to get it started. The renderings are amazing, but its what I like to call “mental masturbation”.… Read more »

In the bubble market you could sell the vision. In today’s market, you buy the reality.

Of course it would be great if these improvements were made to Miami. But the reality is developers are not getting loans. My advice, buy what exists today and if other improvements come down the road in 5-7 or even 20 years, consider that a windfall, just don’t bank on it.

You don’t pay World Center prices for what you get today

lucas
come on. the comparison to cabrini/gold coast to park west is not even close. gold coast was/is nice, cabrini was a dangerous slum project. here, park west is a dump. period. outside of luxury buildings…not a mile away, but rather, right on your doorstep, you have drek all around you. why should anyone pay a premium for this?

I’m sure AJ is knocking on Falcone’s door as we speak to put down preconstruction deposits on 2 units, 1 extra parking space and a couple storage rooms (which are not to be confused with cages).

i’m going to have to agree with jcrimes on this one. I was considering renting a unit in parkwest but found the area around the buildings to be very unpleasant to say the least: I wouldn’t feel safe walking behind those buildings at night.

In any event, the relocation of the homeless shelter will probably help some, but I understand that this isn’t due to happen until 2010 or so….

Regarding the “danger” aspect of Downtown Miami. Girls see the world with very different eyes so I can easily see why female posters may be alarmed with the area. I’ve know quite a few girls that would not walk in Miami Beach late at night by themselves so if you can’t do that, no way in heck are you going to feel comfortable walking up and down Biscayne late at night. Danger is relative. Maybe late at night on the Beach, you have a 1:50,000 chance of something random and violent happening and maybe in Downtown that goes to 1:10,000.… Read more »

Miami World Center has already been shelved.
All that remains is the website.

Wild Bill, has this been confirmed? Any news links to support that it has been shelved?

Wasn’t it AJ that suggested the Department of Homeland Security step in and limit building heights? Maybe that is why Miami World Center got shelved? LOL LOL LOL

Wild Bill,

I’d like to see the link as well. That’s horrible news if that’s true.

Lucas,

CLOSING RATES? Need to see how 500 Brickell is doing? PLEASE.

If you don’t want to post, please let me know a county Internet link?

Thanks!

The area is a dump. It’s a dump with a beautiful facade composed of “luxury” buildings, arts centers, etc… It will continue to be a dump as long as the homeless shelter remains there. The area also needs to beef up its police presence in order to create an even false feeling of safety. At the very least, this should take another 5 years. The Miami World Center would be a great stimulus to this process. Unfortunately, that monster won’t be finished for at least 5 years (if it ends up getting built at all). Hey, it might turn out… Read more »

Everyone keeps talking about the homeless center….what is it, where is it, how big is it, and is a really a den for drunks and druggies or do people really get rehabbed there? Just curious.

Regardless of the Developer’s intentions or “official” project status, it’s hard to imagine a bank that could be able to take a project like that on in the foreseeable future.

The homeless shelter is camillius house. Homeless people line up outside before 2pm to secure a bed daily. There is also a clinic there.

so who the hell would live / work there? it’s not as if Miami is bursting at the seams with demand for however many millions more in office space / residential space. Two new office towers are going up on Brickell and I imagine they’ll have difficulty getting filled. And since the economy here has taken a major hit in all it’s big engines (condo flippers, vacationers, and cocaine.) Lay off the field of dreams mentality.

for those that care… MARLINS GOT APPROVED FOR THE STADIUM… THEY WON IN COURT TODAY! now we will be the Miami Marlins for the 2011 season.

http://florida.marlins.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080909&content_id=3444025&vkey=news_fla&fext=.jsp&c_id=fla

JR56
marlins haven’t won anything yet. the $64k question is financing and that won’t be decided until the fla. supreme court weighs in the coming month.

not to mention, braman will appeal some or all aspects of this suit.

My review of the Jorge Perez book Powerhouse Principles: the Billionaire Blueprint for Real Estate Success:

Related Group’s Jorge Perez on How to Sell a Miami Condo

What might help to take off some “inventory” is when the banks shut off funding developers and construction. It has already started and is going to get even tighter soon. That’s a positive for home prices in the sense that that inventory won’t make it to market, but it is also a sign of how bad things are too. I see the Jade Ocean and Jade Beach in Sunny Isles Beach continue to be completed. They look nice, but wonder who will close. There are a few other developments with fencing and signs but nothing had broken ground from what… Read more »

Renter Tom, I have a question for you….. Do you ever see yourself buying a place??? Here you are, renting, renting, renting….waiting for the bottom before you purchase. When that bottom hits, how good will you feel then about purchasing an older product? There will be no new buildings when the bottom is hit, so you will only have the supply of the buildings that are just now finishing. I would rather buy now for a premium and enjoy living in my own place when it is BRAND NEW, as opposed to buying 2 years from now for a discount… Read more »

dlr – I plan to buy within the next 18 months and had wanted to buy a few months back but market conditions clearly demonstrated that was not the wise thing to do. The events over the last 7 months have only reinforced that decision as being clearly correct. Thanks for your concerns even if they were not genuine. But since most of these new places are only “designer ready” I’d need to paint, etc. anyway. My only risk really would be flooring — marble isn’t cheap to rip up and replace if someone choose a really bad marble. I’d… Read more »

Not only will there be plenty of never lived in units available, there may be some that have the expensive flooring in too which you’d get for free since the units have to compete against each other for sale. The other thing that makes it prudent to wait, is to see how the HOA is run and the developer problems are resolved. By renting, I could care less really, I have the best of both worlds, HALF the cost and NO market or HOA worries! It is just too good to be true to be a renter right now!!! As… Read more »

Unless you intend to live in the condo for a long time, I just can’t see how buying makes sense right now. Consider a 1 bedroom at 900 biscayne. These apartments are for sale for approximately 450000, you can rent the unit for 1800-2000!!!! Considering what a mortgage + association fees, taxes, etc etc etc would cost, renting is a _no brainer_.

dlr – If you want I can see if I still have a copy of my research paper that I wrote in business grad school for my Capital Theory course regarding the use of debt financing (leverage) and taxes (including tax rate differentials between ordinary income and capital gains). Debt financing used prudently can be a good thing….unfortunately that isn’t what happened during the 5 bubble years. More people should have taken that course! LOL

The large majority consensus is that a housing bottom is a ways a way in the Florida market and when it does bottom it will be a saucer bottom….long and flat for years (so loser in real dollar terms) before going back to the normal trend line of inflation to inflation+1%. That seems to be a reasonable take on the market that I would have to concur with.

This isn’t a “negative” comment, it is an honest assessment of the market.

I don’t know why people keep arguing with Renter Tom. He doesn’t think its a good time to buy. He seems smart enough to come to that decision all by himself. Leave it alone. The topic is beaten to death. You will have as much success convincing Renter Tom to buy as convincing AJ that Pace Park is not Nirvana. How about we discuss the takeover of Fannie and Freddie. What effect will it have on the Real Estate Market. I see interest rates came down in one day. And lastly, how can I get one of those SWEET golden… Read more »

storm don’t blame fannie/freddie execs…blame barney frank and company. this thing was set to implode years ago but a host of politicians made sure it played out to the bitter end. the so called housing bill that was passed in the past year indicates the pols’ absurdity with respect to these operations. as for the role it has on rates, two schools of thought – one, rates will boost up; two that rates drop significantly (some are guessing up to 100 bp). regardless of what happens, underwriting standards are still strict, thus, unless there’s a movement in price, it means… Read more »

Auctioning off some developer-owned units, it’s just a matter of time….
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122100073257616909.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Hello Everyone, I am moving to Miami in November. Currently I am looking for rentals with my boyfriend. Last week, my BF (who is local by the way) took me to the nightclub city behind the new buildings in Park West. We had a great time. After we got out of the club, he dragged me to the gas station near the white building against my wishes to buy a gatorade. After the whole process is over, nothing happened. It was like a normal event in any neighborhood. I am actually considering to add Park West to my list of… Read more »

Covina, you should have a good amount of units to chose from. There’s quite a few units for rent in Marina Blue right now and I suspect more rental listings in 900 will start showing up soon as it takes time to install flooring after unit closings start.

In case you didn’t know, Lucas keeps a track of rentals/sales at the top of the page under “Condo Listings”. For some reason though, Marina Blue is located under “Miami” while 900 is under “Miami Downtown”.

The Miami World Center relied upon the Port of Miami tunnel. The streets in the plans are not designed for tractor trailers from the port. Until the tunnel is finished they cannot touch the streets in this area. April, 2007 Herald.com had article had a story about this area………… “Miami land tracts being sold: Developer xxxxxxxxx, which bought large swaths of downtown Miami property, is set to cut its holdings nearly in half. It has a contract to sell. For Miami, the development company has two condominiums under construction while it is revamping plans for a third. It owns a… Read more »

so last night the elevators at Plaza on Brickell broke down completely for hours. This is the second time in recent memory this has happened. ALL elevators OUT OF SERVICE!! I’ve lived in a lot of buildings with elevators, and I’ve worked in a lot of buildings with elevators. I’ve seen single elevators out of service, and I’ve been annoyed with slow elevators. but no where ever, in any place I’ve lived, in numerous cities and multiple countries, have I ever seen a building with as unreliable elevators as this POS building. Is elevator technology really that difficult and advanced??… Read more »

Renter Tom, I would be interested in reading your research paper. Is there someway to communicate via private message so I can send you my email address? Much has been written about the causes of the housing bubble and who is to blame (banks, brokers, speculators, etc.) but we fail to get at the source of the problem. We as Americans have increasingly become reliant on government to provide a safety net when things don’t go our way. When this mentality is applied to a larger scale it affects the efficiencies of free markets and artificially depresses the risks that… Read more »

An unidentified woman was found stabbed to death between two South Beach construction sites early Monday.
A passerby found the body on 11th Street and Collins Avenue. The victim, about 5 feet 6 inches and 120 pounds, had multiple stab wounds.
In all honesty both Park West and South Beach are low class neighborhoods surrounded by pockets of wealth. As long as people don’t read the local newspapers everything is fine.

I think the reason South Beach is demonstrably safer is because it has more foot traffic at all hours (although the Beach can be amazingly deserted at times). The downtown condos tend to be more deserted at off hours and that’s when the danger alarm goes up for most people.

The article Wild Bill mentioned was about Leviev Boymelgreen (Marquis, Vitri..etc) not Falcone.

I have friends that work trauma and plastic surgery and there’s quite a few tragedy cases that get dropped off at Jackson (hospital) that you never really hear about or maybe you do but it’s magnitude is never truly conveyed in public. In case people didn’t know, NYC trauma surgeons in training flock to Miami as the trauma training in Miami is much better and abundant than in NYC. Something to think about.

Here is the master plan for Miami World Center which the Miami Planning Board will review and vote on Wed, the 17th.

(37 pages)
http://egov.ci.miami.fl.us/Legistarweb/Attachments/45631.pdf

Realistically, what kind of price tag would this project have?

people keep arguing with Renter Tom for 1 million reasons and the first one is: he has NO money to buy anything, so that’s why he is a “renter”. How boring, what a loser, always the same things over and over and over… Quote: Storm // Sep 9, 2008 at 10:28 pm I don’t know why people keep arguing with Renter Tom. He doesn’t think its a good time to buy. He seems smart enough to come to that decision all by himself. Leave it alone. The topic is beaten to death. You will have as much success convincing Renter… Read more »

I was going to refrain from commenting anymore because this horse has certainly been beaten to DEATH, but JL had a good point, communities definitely benefit from “eyes on the street” which is more prevalent on S. Beach with the scale of buildings and its level of redevelopment. Park West and Downtown are a good 10 years behind in that sense. Lucas’s point is that historically the “best” and “worst” areas are adjacent to each other, that is true in any city, stray a few blocks unknowingly and you might not like where you end up including Miami. I just… Read more »

Suppose to clsoe on Plaza on Brickell, what do you think of building?

No worries, I got plenty of money….and too many d*mn bank accounts and banks thanks to the FDIC limits…..it is a real pain and CDARS don’t pay a high enough rate. Oh well. I still need one more bank.

In this market and the last two years, the silly decision was to be an owner for 98% of the buyers out there. Just look at all those people running away from their deposits…..

Gerardo, What do you intend to do with Plaza when you close? I know that’s it has been very successful in its rental program. The location is great. Without further information it’s hard to make a recommendation. Will you be an end-user? What are your carrying costs? Cash deal? Good mortgage? There’s too many components to give a blanket answer. I hear complaints about the garage and elevators. My husband is a licensed architect and he said they need to get after the elevator manufacturer if they are having that many problems. It’s not the developer, architect or buildings fault…… Read more »

Jcrime

braman will indeed appeal but it will not have an effect wether this project will move foward or not. it was stated by marlins president himself. the court / county vote 6 for 6 so far …. even if the 7th vote is a NO , it still will not stop this project. Marlins do not intend to use C.R.A funding… tune in AM 790 the ticket or read it in the papers..

also http://www.floridamarlins.com

i do consider this A WIN under their column.

JL,

Why are you so much more bearish all of he sudden? I like it, but I am surprised.

Wild bill, was that murder on Monday? I couldn’t find anything in the herald.

I calculate that I will probably save about $300K just by waiting to buy and renting in the interim. Let me repeat, I will be ahead $300,000.00 for DOING NOTHING. Sorta like the reverse of flipping.