Fit City Comes to Aventura
With the sales launch of Aventura ParkSquare, Miami developer Integra Investments is betting the next big thing in South Florida mixed-used is going to be health and wellness. The project is a “fit city” designed by urbanist Bernard Zyscovich based on Active Design Guidelines, a manual published by the NYC Health Department to promote physical activity and combat obesity.
Aventura's best known these days for shopping, but Integra principal Victor Ballestas tells us the project will create a sense of place with its health activities, besides the more standard entertainment, dining and nightlife options. Ultimately, the project will include a 131-unit luxury condo tower; 55k SF of retail space complete with upscale boutiques and restaurants; a hotel; a 100k SF office building with outdoor event space; and a 45k SF wellness medical center with specialty healthcare tenants.
The design fosters the use of stairways instead of elevators to encourage natural fitness, with stairways in clear sight and in central locations on the property, and it promotes walking rather than driving, with extra-wide sidewalks and landscaping to provide shade and rain protection. There's green space to bring people outdoors, specific programming such as community yoga to keep fitness top-of-mind, and space for vegetable gardening to encourage healthy eating. |
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Plan B for Miami Beach Convention Center
The City of Miami Beach is going to Plan B to get a new convention center developed, reports the Miami Herald, to replace the existing facility (pictured) which, despite various upgrades, is feeling its age. The city would pay Fentress Architects to finish its plans for a new center, and then put out to bid a contract for a "construction manager at risk." According to the paper, Clark Construction Group couldn't finish the job within the city's budget of about $500M without making unexpected changes to the plans. |
Hilton Bags Key West Hotels
Hilton Worldwide will acquire five hotels with $1.76B of the proceeds from its Waldorf Astoria sale last fall, two of which are in Key West, where room revenue outpaces both NYC and US averages (and RevPAR is No. 3 nationwide, according to STR). The other properties in the deal include Parc 55 in S.F. and two hotels in Orlando. The move is part of a strategic shift by the world's largest hotel operator away from New York, where room revenue growth has slowed due to an ever-growing supply of new hotel developments. The seller is Blackstone.
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Ed Redlich, RCA Realtor of the Year
Congrats to ComReal Cos' Ed Redlich, the Realtor Commercial Alliance (RCA) of Miami's 2014 Commercial Realtor of the Year. He was also 2014 commercial president for the org, and is 2014-15 president of SIOR's Florida chapter. Ed's offered his expert advice to us, most recently letting us know that refrigerated warehouse space is very tight in Miami because of high demand from distributors of flowers, produce and other foods. |
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Flower Power During Valentine's Season
About 90% of the overseas-grown flowers destined for the United States enter through MIA, and the week leading up to Valentine's Day is the rush season in the business, with orders up at least 50%. Snapped: the newly opened South Florida Logistics Center, which is adjacent to MIA, where 100 million flowers will pass through this Valentine's season. One of the largest floral companies in the US, the Elite Flower, recently set up its Miami HQ at the SFLC to handle its Valentine's Day season; Elite worked with Flagler Global Logistics to create its space, which now is handling enough flowers to fill four B767 cargo aircraft every day during this Valentine's season.
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