Futuristic $100M Wellness Center Takes 10 Floors At Miami Worldcenter
In what is being described as one of the largest commercial leases to be executed in Downtown Miami's history, Adventist Health and Legacy Hotel & Residences have teamed up to bring a center for well-being to a skyscraper in Miami Worldcenter, a multibillion-dollar mixed-use project.
The Blue Zones will occupy 10 stories and cost $100M, according to an announcement made Saturday. Services will include diagnostic, surgical, medical, spa, fitness, lifestyle medicine and well-being improvement programming.
Dan Buettner, a National Geographic fellow, identified places around the world where people live long and happy lives and dubbed them blue zones. He founded Blue Zones, a company that sought to harness research and empower people to lose weight, stop smoking and stay healthy. The company put out books and cookbooks and branched into planning and consulting around real estate and community-building. Blue Zones was acquired by California-based Adventist Health, a 150-year-old nonprofit, in 2020.
Now, Adventist has teamed up with the 39-story Legacy Hotel & Residences to create a joint venture deal called Blue Legacy Ventures. Miami developer Dan Kodsi, CEO of Royal Palm Cos., developed the Legacy Hotel & Residences as part of Miami Worldcenter.
"The neo-futurism-inspired tower features 274 branded residences sitting atop a 219-room hotel, including ground-floor retail, and will feature one-of-a-kind amenities that include the city's first enclosed rooftop atrium taking up the top seven floors of the tower with a members-only international business lounge; a dramatic cantilevered, Singapore-inspired pool, downtown's largest pool deck set on one acre and a first-of-its-kind medical and wellness center," according to the announcement.
Units sized at 400 SF to 949 SF are branded as "microLUXE residences ... offering the functionality of a micro-style home with the high-quality design and superior finishes of an elite condominium."
Stephen Watson, managing partner of RPC company Legacy Medical Holdings, envisioned and led the development of the center.
"This will be a more advanced way of addressing health, where the patient's journey begins with a highly personalized medical evaluation by your physician, followed by a unique and customized high-tech and high-touch program that utilizes all of the services within the center, including surgical, aesthetic, therapeutic, consultative, lifestyle coaching, well-being programming and more to keep people well and happy," Watson said in a statement.
The idea is to develop a setting "where the healthy choice is the easy choice," with building design encouraging people to flow from the doctor's office to on-site restaurants with healthy menus and so on. The property will include a farmers market, a curated voluntourism program, "movement activation" in a planned 80-acre park system and a Blue Zones interactive Exploratorium.
Kodsi's firm also developed the 60-story Paramount Miami Worldcenter condo, where he has long emphasized having "the most amenities in the world," including a 5K SF Skyport for drones on the roof.
