Two of the biggest names in South Florida commercial real estate are joining forces for the first time to develop a condo tower in the heart of downtown Miami. The development will be part of the massive, $4B Miami Worldcenter project that’s currently rising on 27 acres.
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Merrimac Ventures, run by the family of Worldcenter co-developer Nitin Motwani, is partnering with Related Group to bring a 31-story, 450-unit condo tower to the master-planned development.
The Crosby will have no rental restrictions, so owners can rent out their units for any length of time. It will be up to owners to market their own units, but there will be staff on-site to help short-term visitors.
“We have foreign buyers that love the idea of being able to leverage, whether it's Airbnb, VRBO or a private broker or, frankly, themselves,” Motwani said. “They love that flexibility because it allows them to use the unit when they're in town and rent it when they're not. I just hung up with a domestic buyer in Palm Beach who comes down for Heat games, Marlins games, comes with their family, and they love the idea — they're going to use it multiple times a year, but want that flexibility when they're not.”
Studio, one- and two-bedroom residences will range from 350 SF to 825 SF. The building, designed by CFE Architects and interior designers AvroKO, will have 22K SF of amenities including a wellness center with saunas and plunge pools, a clubroom featuring billiards, a theater, a private dining area, and a resort-style rooftop pool deck to be serviced by a yet-to-be-announced food and beverage concept that will be located on the ground floor.
Units will start at $300K. OneWorld Properties, led by CEO Peggy Olin, will handle sales exclusively. The project is expected to break ground in Q1 2023 and be completed by early 2025.
The condo is named the Crosby after a street in New York’s Soho neighborhood.
"Worldcenter’s becoming the new center of downtown, the heartbeat of downtown, so we wanted a name that resonated with people [as] metropolitan," Related Group Senior Vice President Nick Perez said. "We felt like it had a nice ring and alludes to a downtown kind of vibrant lifestyle.”
Miami Worldcenter is one of the most ambitious urban projects underway in the U.S. For decades, Miami’s downtown was blighted with empty storefronts and saw little activity. In the early 2000s, Motwani and Art Falcone, principals of Miami Worldcenter Associates — a joint venture between the Falcone Group and Los Angeles-based CIM Group — began assembling parcels from dozens of different owners with plans to revitalize the city center.
The project — which has been touted as a "city within a city" — is now in full swing. In the past few years, several developers have built out different components. So far, 150K SF of retail has been completed and another 130K SF is under construction. Tenants expected to open their doors this year include Sephora, Lucid Motors and a number of restaurants.
Residential offerings include two towers that were completed in 2019: the 569-unit Paramount Miami Worldcenter condo and Caoba, a 444-unit apartment tower developed by CIM Group and Falcone Group. WeWork co-founder Adam Neumann reportedly took a majority stake in the latter building recently. Reports indicate another luxury rental tower, ZOM's 434-unit Bezel project, opened last month.
Additional Worldcenter components are under construction or will be soon. This includes Legacy Hotel & Residences, a 50-story mixed-use tower with 310 residences atop a hotel, developed by Royal Palm Cos.; a 12-story, 351-room CitizenM boutique hotel; a 52-story, 560-unit apartment tower from New York-based developer Lalezarian; Kenect, a 450-unit hospitality-oriented apartment tower from Chicago-based Akara Partners; and a second phase of Caoba. Also, real estate investor Witkoff and Chicago-based Monroe Capital acquired the site where a Marriott Marquis had once been planned.
“There's no other for-sale product in Miami Worldcenter. Everything else is already sold out,” Perez said.
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