South Florida’s white-hot real estate market is prompting developers to take stock of the region’s older beachfront high-rises as potential buyout candidates for redevelopment.
MIAMI (CBSMiami/AP) – South Florida’s white-hot real estate market is prompting developers to take stock of the region’s older beachfront high-rises as potential buyout candidates for redevelopment. While not new, the trend has taken on greater importance as vacant land disappears and more out-of-state residents move to South Florida in search of luxury digs. Owners who would not have given a thought to selling previously are now taking the idea of moving seriously when confronted with lofty buyout offers, industry analysts and attorneys say. — In Pompano Beach, The Related Group recently bought out the owners of all 46 low-rise units at the Beach Villa at 900 North Ocean Drive. The complex was built in 1978. The company recently won city approval to rezone the property so it can build a 21-story luxury tower in the Beach Villa’s place. — In Miami Beach, owners of the Castle Beach Club, a circa-1966 17-story high-rise on Collins Avenue, received so many unsolicited offers from various unidentified suitors that they hired Colliers, the real estate services firm, to sort through them. — In Sunny Isles Beach, Related Group and Dezer Development are celebrating a sellout of their sleek new 55-floor Armani/Casa luxury tower. The project, which broke ground in 2016, came after the developers took over a site that was home to the decades-old Seashore Club, a low rise complex of 170 units, which they bought out. Although the latter deal was roughly five years ago, it’s emblematic of how new upscale condo projects are increasingly displacing long-standing residential sites whose early years are distant memories. “It does seem to be a growing trend,” said Gerard Yetming, executive managing director of Colliers, the real estate services company. “Really there are very few opportunities to build a new high-rise somewhere as desirable as on the beach.” Yetming said the obvious attraction for owners selling their older units is the premium prices developers are willing to pay for them. “They begin to realize this is something we should explore in an organized fashion,” Yetming said. “It is only with the right collective goals and an adviser where you can get something done.” He said there are a lot of buyout initiatives you don’t hear about. Many fail, he said, amid bidding wars or internal disagreements over whether a sale should occur in the first place.
