With at least 125 new condo towers already proposed for South Florida since the real estate crash of 2007, a trio of different developers have announced plans to build three additional towers with a combined 600 more units in the Greater Downtown Miami market and the neighborhood to the north.
The newly proposed condo towers – Echo Brickell, an unnamed project near the Habitat Residences, and the 4300 Biscayne Boulevard – come at a time when a pair of development sites fronting Biscayne Bay have recently traded for at least $29 million each in the Biscayne Boulevard Corridor of Greater Downtown Miami within a two-week period.
In the Greater Downtown Miami market, developers are now proposing – or have recently completed – at least 25 new towers with nearly 8,300 condo units in a area that is defined as the Julia Tuttle Causeway south to the Rickenbacker Causeway, and Biscayne Bay west to Interstate 95. An additional three condo tower with a combined 325 units have been proposed for sites just north of the Greater Downtown Miami boundary of the Julia Tuttle Causeway.
Overall in South Florida, developers are now proposing nearly 17,700 units for the tricounty region of coastal Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach as of April 20, 2013. Of the three newly proposed condo towers in the Greater Downtown Miami area, the tallest is to be the 60-story Echo Brickell project with 250 units on the 1400 block of Brickell Avenue, according to the Miami Herald.
The New York-based developer is already proceeding a pair of other condo towers: the Echo Aventura project in Northeast Miami-Dade County and the Sage Beach project in Southeast Broward County.
The second newly proposed condo project for Greater Downtown Miami is yet to be named but is expected to have 190 units in the Brickell Avenue Area.
The third newly proposed project – 4300 Biscayne Boulevard – is slated to be built by a entity controlled by the Related Group just north of the Greater Downtown Miami boundary of the Julia Tuttle Causeway and east of Miami’s Design District, according to Miami-Dade County records. Plans call for the project to be 15-stories tall with 167 units on a site next to an existing office building, according to the newly filed Notice Of Commencement recorded with Miami-Dade County.
Some six years after the South Florida condo market began to stall, one new condo tower has already been completed in the tricounty region and 19 other highrises – Aventura’s Bellini At Williams Island; Greater Downtown Miami’s 1100 Millecento Residences, Brickell Citycentre (two towers), BrickellHouse, Habitat II, ICON Bay, and MyBrickell projects; Hollywood’s Apogee Beach; Key Biscayne’s Oceana (two towers); Miami’s 4300 Biscayne Boulevard in the Morningside area; Miami Beach’s Faena House Saxony and Residences At Miami Beach Edition; Palm Beach County’s 4001 North Ocean project; and Sunny Isles Beach’s Chateau Beach, Mansions At Acqualina, Porsche Design Tower, and Regalia – are under construction as the post-crash development era gains momentum.
The push for new condo construction comes as unit inventory is being absorbed in Greater Downtown Miami. As of March 31, 2013, about 600 new condos were unsold out of a total of more than 22,200 units created in the Greater Downtown Miami market during the last South Florida boom that began in 2003.