Condo Ownership Goes Turnkey

Seasonal and vacation rentals are nothing new in tourist destinations, but a trend toward flexibility is adding buzz to owning a Miami condominium. Buyers can purchase fully furnished turnkey apartments with the option of living there long term, or renting them for seasonal and short-term use. Flexible living condos offer varied amenities, with or without a hotel component, and can function as extended-stay or short-stay units, Airbnb-style.

Leading the trend locally is Quadro Miami, a 12-story two-tower development designed by Behar Font & Partners and built by Alta Developers in a hot location – 3900 Biscayne Blvd., just north of the Julia Tuttle Causeway to Miami Beach and Route 112 to the airport. On Feb. 5, Quadro Miami officially changes from rental to condo – with a new identity.

Owners buy Quadro residences move-in ready, together with the flexibility to rent them short-term, seasonally or long-term. A leaseback program allows buyers to purchase a unit with a long-term tenant already in place. To simplify the process, owners can retain the services of a separate professional management company to take care of their unit’s setup and administration. Six interior design packages offer a choice of accessories and furniture options.

Quadro’s 198 residences – which include studios and one- and two-bedroom units – range from 548 to 1,280 square feet with outdoor space on balconies, terraces or patios. Residents can enjoy a pool, summer kitchen and cabanas on the deck on the sixth-floor amenity level connecting the two towers. The ground-floor retail space with varied stores is a plus. Condo prices start around $350,000.

Raimundo Onetto, principal and CEO of Alta Developers, notes that Quadro features more than 500 art pieces and installations created by Art with DNA, under the direction of artist Francisco del Rio.

Natiivo Miami, a flexible living development in the heart of downtown, is now in sales mode, slated to open at 601 NE 1st Ave. in summer 2023. Designed by Arquitectonica, the 51-story building will have 448 condominium residences ranging from studios to four-bedroom apartments, a 100-unit hotel and 140 condo-hotel residences, operated by Gale Miami Hotel & Residences, plus 127 office condos. Urban Robot Associates is designing the interior and exterior spaces.

“Our development allows both residents and guests to live, work, eat and play under one roof,” said Keith Menin, hospitality entrepreneur and Natiivo Miami developer. “This is the first development designed, built and licensed for home sharing, creating a hybrid hospitality and residential experience for owners and travelers alike.”

Buyers can purchase the fully furnished apartments to live in full time or place on a home-sharing platform for supplemental income. Or they can purchase a hotel-condo unit that can be rented through the hotel. Guests looking for short-term rentals can choose furnished condos, hotel accommodation or the condo-hotel residences.

The Natiivo Social, a private social club, will cater to both residents and hospitality guests. More than 70,000 square feet of amenities include a restaurant, bar, pool and cabanas, private meeting rooms with a terrace, state-of-the-art fitness center, Peloton studio and yoga lounge.

The Creative HQ office condos in Natiivo Miami bring a new live-work dimension to South Florida real estate. The office-condos located on the fifth through eighth floors, with open floor plans, advanced technology and ultra-high-speed internet access, will be delivered fully finished and tenant ready.

Prices for Natiivo Miami residences and the Creative HQ office component start in the $300,000s.

HEALTHY DEVELOPMENT ALONG THE MIAMI RIVER

This report may be stretching the usual boundaries for Biscayne Times by going west of the boulevard beyond I-95, but real estate activity in the area is too significant to ignore.

Highland Park, a hidden, almost forgotten neighborhood dating back to 1910, is on the radar after the Miami Commission approved rezoning last year. The area lies east of NW 7th Avenue and Overtown, squeezed between the 836 Expressway and the Metrorail line to the north, west and south; a Miami investment group is aiming to rebrand it as Miami Central District. It’s early days, but Highland Park could join the roster of other low-key Miami neighborhoods that are being dramatically transformed with large-scale residential and commercial development.

Nearby, River Landing Shops & Residences, a $425 million mixed-use development on 8.14 acres along the Miami River, is bringing national retailers, a Publix supermarket, restaurants, offices and market-rate apartments to a formerly underserved area – the health district surrounding Jackson Memorial Hospital (also known as the Civic Center). One of the fastest-growing neighborhoods in Miami, it boasts the second-largest health district in the U.S. and the second-largest employment base in Miami-Dade County. There’s a daytime population of 600,000 within a 5-mile radius – 49,000 employees in a 1-mile radius and 20,000 daily visitors.

Andrew Hellinger, a co-principal of Miami-based Urban-X Group, developer of River Landing, said that his company was motivated to build a new city in an overlooked area of the city.

“We saw the need for a place for people to live, work and play without leaving the area. We decided to provide the convenience of the suburban shopping experience with ample, easy-access parking,” he said.

Hellinger added that it was important to make the most of the waterfront location by creating a 50-foot wide-open space planted with trees and greenery alongside the new Riverwalk. Boating access to River Landing is planned and eventually a water taxi service will connect it to downtown and Brickell.

The pandemic hasn’t slowed retail leasing in River Landing, according to David Emihovich, managing partner of Katz & Associates. His leasing company has brought in a number of stores, restaurants and a dental center. Emihovich notes that Hobby Lobby, which usually operates from freestanding stores in suburban areas, has leased its first multilevel project in the country set in an urban shopping center. Planet Fitness opened recently and more retail stores, restaurants and a spa are due to follow suit in the spring and summer, as River Landing develops into an important center on the Miami River.

NEIGHBORHOODS TO KNOW

Buyers eager to live on the water have been flocking to Sans Souci Estates and Keystone Point, about 10 miles north of downtown Miami.

“These are among the most desirable and affordable waterfront, guard-gated communities in Miami- Dade County,” said Jeff Tomlinson, broker-owner of Tomlinson Realty Group and a lifetime resident. “We have third-generation homeowners and I’d guess that more than two-thirds of the residents are aged 25-45.”

He also notes that in both communities, remodeling and rebuilding is actively transforming older, mainly waterfront homes into attractive, architecturally interesting, modern mansions.

These two neighborhoods, each intersected by canals and waterways with ocean access at Haulover Inlet just minutes away, offer a lively boating and fishing lifestyle. For land travel, there are nearby shops, restaurants and schools. Bal Harbour and Surfside for shopping and the beach are just across the 123rd Street Causeway. North Miami’s Sans Souci Tennis Center adds to local sporting amenities.

Sans Souci Estates, with 350 homes east of Biscayne Boulevard between NE 114th Street and NE 123rd Street, was developed in the 1960s and 1970s. About 80% of homes are within the Sans Souci Estates’ police-manned guard-gated community. Waterfront homes, lining the five canals and on wide bayfront lots at the tip of the finger canals connecting to Biscayne Bay, are most sought after, second only to the North Bayshore Drive homes directly on the water. Demand for homes has created a shortage of listings and higher prices. In January 2020 there were 85 homes listed for sale, but only some 19 homes were listed in mid-January of this year.

“I’d say that 70% of the buyers were from the Northeast leaving condos and fleeing COVID restrictions, or Californians fed up with the taxes, floods and fires. We’re also seeing European, Russian and South American buyers,” noted Tomlinson, who has sold more than 1,000 homes locally in the last three decades. “Prices have jumped nearly 20% lately and we’ve been seeing new price levels in Sans Souci Estates. A brand-new, dramatically modern design home on the wide bay was recently sold for nearly $10 million.”

Remodeled bayfront homes are priced from $4 to $7 million, and beautiful newly constructed homes on Biscayne Bay are listed up to $14 million.

Elsewhere in Sans Souci’s gated enclave, buyers can expect to pay upward of $1.8 million for a livable home and $3.4 to $4 million for newer-construction canal waterfront homes. Nonwaterfront homes range from $800,000 to $1.5 million.

Melrose Point Townhomes, accessed by its own security guard gate, offers a less expensive option, although prices have risen dramatically, now asking from the $300,000s to about $450,000. Condominiums in the oldest buildings on Sans Souci Boulevard start around $175,000 for one-bedroom units to $250,000 for a two-bedroom unit. In newer, good security buildings, condo prices range from $175,000 to $650,000.

Keystone Point stretches east from Biscayne Boulevard to Biscayne Bay, and north from NE 123rd Street to NE 135th Street. About two-thirds of Keystone Point homes are waterfront, lining the 20 canals with direct boating access to Biscayne or situated on Keystone Island Drive and part of Biscayne Bay Drive directly on Biscayne Bay. Keystone Point has an unusual history, said Tomlinson, who grew up there. During WWII, two landing strips were built on NE 135th Street and NE 124th Street for submarine-watching DC-3 planes. 

These may have inspired plans for an Aviation Country Club in the late 1940s where homes would be located between runways and canals. Homeowners could keep their planes on a runway on one side of their house and their boats in a canal on the other side. But only a couple of homes were built and the neighborhood was reconfigured for redevelopment in the 1950s. Over the following years some 1,200 homes were built, accessed by three private-security gates.

Bayfront homes in Keystone Point are priced from $4 to $6 million for remodeled structures while beautiful modern newly-constructed mansions range from $7 million to $14 million. Canal waterfront homes range from $900.000 to $2.1 million while new- construction homes go for $2.2million to $3.8 million. The current average price for non-waterfront homes ranges from the $600,000s to the $1,000,000s.

A major attraction for boating residents is the full-service Keystone Point Marina, offering everything from basic boating supplies and fishing bait to towing service and fishing charters. The TNT Marine Center has the only indoor boat storage in the area together with a sales and service maintenance center.

Together these two mainly waterfront neighborhoods boast a low crime rate and a comparatively high flood-level elevation. Most of all, residents enjoy living in traditional, safe and friendly neighborhoods.

TRANSPARENCY IN BUYING

Miami has had its share of anonymous real estate buyers and sellers concealing their identity with a corporate-type name through an LLC – limited liability corporation. Though it is a useful, legal business strategy, it has also been used by shell companies to launder money through the purchase of high-priced real estate (and super luxury cars and fine art works). Now that’s changed.

The recently passed Corporate Transparency Act removes anonymity from property purchases. The new federal law requires domestic and foreign LLCs doing business in the U.S. to disclose “who is the real, natural person (aka beneficial owner) who owns and controls an entity at the point of formation.” A name, address, date of birth, and driver’s license or other identification number is required for each transaction. How this law will impact local real estate remains to be seen.

Helen Hill is a freelance writer specializing in real estate, design and lifestyle topics. Please send news items on local real estate to hhwrites@comcast.net.