Elle Signs On To Brand Condo Tower With Magazine-Inspired Interiors

Fashionable house hunters in Miami have to make a tough decision: Dolce & Gabbana or Elle. 

The media brand known for glossy magazines has partnered with developers Vertical Developments and Urban Network Capital Group to brand a 25-story condo tower in Edgewater as the Elle Residences Miami. 

It’s the latest entrant in the wave of brand partnerships at condo towers in the city and comes a month after JDS Development Group purchased the site for its planned Dolce & Gabbana supertall condo-hotel in Brickell. 

Elle Residences Miami’s 180 condos are also positioned as short-term rentals, coming fully furnished and ranging from 450 SF to 845 SF, along with a selection of penthouses. Standard units range from one to two bedrooms and start above $525K, with Edgardo Defortuna’s Fortune Development Sales as the property’s exclusive agent. 

Located at 3618 NE Fifth Ave., the tower will be the first branded residence for the media and lifestyle brand but not its first foray into real estate. Elle’s name adorns hotels in Paris and Amsterdam, and the company has licensed branded cafés, beauty salons and spas around the globe, according to a release. 

“ELLE’s long standing brand success stems from our pursuit of innovation, and we take pride in continuing to challenge the status quo as ELLE enters a new era with residences,” Constance Benqué, CEO of Elle International, said in a statement.  

The tower is scheduled to break ground next year, although the developers have yet to secure construction financing and a spokesperson declined to disclose pre-sale figures.

Elle is partnering on the project’s interior design with The One Atelier, a design firm based in the UK that specializes in branded real estate. The project promises “a lifestyle brimming with joie de vivre” that integrates “the daring, innovative and inspirational design seen on the pages” of the Elle Decor interior design magazine, the release states. 

“Combining the city’s distinctive cultural diversity and dynamism with the brand’s eclectic, spirited ethos and contemporary, Parisian allure, ELLE Residences Miami will truly be one of a kind,” Robert Thorne, CEO of Miami-based Urban Network Capital Group, said in a statement. 

The tower was designed by Coral Gables-based Behar Font & Partners and includes two dedicated floors for amenities along with a rooftop pool deck that will have a lounge and dedicated space for listening and playing music. 

The lower amenities floors include a French Riviera-inspired sun deck and pool along with a gym that has an outdoor fitness lawn, meditation garden and spa. 

The project will “debut a new legacy” for Elle, Fernando de Nuñez y Lugones, CEO of Vertical Developments, said in a statement.

The Elle media brand, which includes 46 editions of the namesake magazine reaching 250 million people globally, is owned by Lagardère Group. The Paris-based firm has operations in more than 40 countries and has more than 200 agreements to license the Elle name. 

Vertical Developments is a partnership between Peru’s V&V Group and Location3 Investments, a private equity and development firm with offices in Miami and Buenos Aires.  

Urban Network Capital Group and Vertical Developments paid $13.5M for the development site in October, purchasing four small apartment buildings to create a 19K SF parcel. The Elle Residences Miami proposal is an update to plans submitted in January for an unbranded condo-hotel with the same unit count. 

The partnership is also building Visions at Brickell Station, a 111-unit condo hotel at 1120 SW Third Ave. The developers secured a $45M construction loan in December. 

Elle's partnership on the Edgewater development comes as projects targeting short-term rentals proliferate across the city. 

For car makers alone, Dezer Development opened the Porsche Design Tower in Sunny Isles in 2017 as one of the first branded towers of this cycle, and the Miami-based developer recently broke ground on the 62-story Bentley Residences next door. 

The Aston Martin Residences Miami officially opened in April after seven years of construction, and Mercedes-Benz signed on in February to an under-construction project in Brickell. 

The Elle Residences Miami project adds to the 8,467 short-term rental condos that were planned for Miami’s urban core at the end of 2023, accounting for more than half the total condo development pipeline in the area, according to ISG World.  

Developers are responding to continued demand for real estate investment opportunities from international buyers, who made up 47% of all home purchases in the year ending in July, according to data from Miami Realtors. 

Pre-development sales deposits also reduce overall lending costs, making condos an attractive option in today’s high-interest-rate environment.

CORRECTION, MAY 29, 8:00 P.M. ET: A previous version of this story and its headline misstated Elle's association with the development. Elle, a brand owned by Lagardère Group, is the partner. The story has been updated.