Developer Taps Mercedes-Benz To Brand 67-Story Miami Condo Tower
Mercedes-Benz is the latest carmaker to enter Miami’s branded condo marketplace.
JDS Development Group has partnered with the car company on Mercedes-Benz Places in Brickell, Miami’s financial district. Construction of the 67-story mixed-use tower with 791 condos is underway with delivery slated for 2027.
The project is the first North American tower to get Mercedes-Benz branding, but it is the fourth partnership between a developer and carmaker for a luxury condo tower to be announced in Miami in recent years.
“It is a privilege to work with Mercedes-Benz and move beyond a traditional residential building to create a new community for the future,” JDS CEO Michael Stern said in a statement. “Underpinned by sustainable building methods and design, Mercedes–Benz Places in Miami will create a legacy not just for Brickell, but Florida as a whole.”
The 2.5M SF tower being built at 1 Southside Park will have units ranging from studios to three-bedroom condos, a 174-key hotel, 200K SF of office space and 130K SF of amenity and hospitality space, according to a release.
The new partnership with Mercedes-Benz comes after JDS secured $86M in acquisition and construction financing from New York-based Maxim Capital for the project in June 2022. The project has been planned since at least 2020.
The tower was designed by New York-based SHoP Architects, but JDS and Mercedes-Benz said in a release that the carmaker refined the design through its “Sensual Purity” design principles.
“This philosophy, based on the duality of emotion and intelligence, consists of a hot and a cool pole,” Gorden Wagener, chief design officer at Mercedes-Benz, said in a statement.
“The cool aspect represents very much the tradition of geometric German long live design originated in the Bauhaus. This crucial part of our brand was the inspiration for the architecture of this extraordinary new Mercedes-Benz Places landmark in Miami.”
JDS, which has headquarters offices in New York and Miami, is building the project on an assemblage that includes city-owned property and adjacent land the developer acquired for a combined $24M in 2020.
The 1.5 acres owned by the city were declared a brownfield site in April 2021 due to elevated levels of arsenic. The designation came a year after JDS made a deal with the city to allow for the tower’s development in exchange for the construction of an $8M fire station on the ground floor, a $5M payment toward public benefits and a $3M refurbishment of the adjacent Southside Park, The Real Deal reported at the time.
Mercedes-Benz Places joins three other carmaker-branded towers in Miami, where branded residences have become a differentiator for developers announcing luxury projects.
Porsche Design Tower, a 132-unit project from Miami-based Dezer Development, opened on Sunny Isles Beach in 2017. The success of that project led Dezer to announce plans last year to build the 216-unit Bentley Residences Sunny Isles next door.
The 9,600 SF penthouse at the 391-unit Aston Martin Residences sold this month, with the purchase coming with an Aston Martin Miami Riverwalk Edition DBX. Miami-based G&G Business Developments has been building the waterfront tower in Downtown Miami since 2017.
Mercedes-Benz Places is the second branded tower for the automaker. It announced plans in January to partner with Binghatti Properties on a 1,118-foot tower in Dubai with 150 apartments, which start at $2.7M, Bloomberg reported.
