Clad in his signature all-white suit and matching fedora, Alan Faena stood on the crimson stage –– flanked by his development partners Edgardo Defortuna and Shahab Karmely –– and said their planned Faena Residences towers won’t merely offer condos.
“We are offering happiness,” Faena said at the Saturday night party for the official opening of the Faena Residences Miami Cultural Pavillion and Collaboratory, a sales center and cultural hub at 90 Southwest Third Street on the Miami River.
The center is adorned with mockups of Faena Residences and a room with a red velvet circular couch and red velvet curtains, reminiscent of the theater at the Faena District in Miami Beach.
The event celebrated the official opening of the cultural pavilion and collaboratory for Miami’s high season. The sales gallery officially opened this spring and buyers started signing contracts in the summer, following an initial “whisper” marketing campaign targeting friends and family, according to Defortuna.
Defortuna’s Brickell-based Fortune International Group and Karmely’s New York-based KAR Properties are partnering with Faena on Faena Residences. The Miami River project will consist of a pair of 68-story towers with 440 condos, combined, connected by a roughly 50,000-square-foot bridge with amenities, Defortuna and Karmely said.
Condos will range from one-bedroom to four-bedroom units, plus penthouses. Asking prices are $1.4 million to $4 million, with penthouses asking as much as $35 million.
Nearly 100 units have been presold so far for a combined $300 million, Defortuna said. The demand is nearly 60 percent foreign and 40 percent domestic, he added.
The Saturday celebration was held on the 1.8-acre riverfront vacant site at 24 Southwest Fourth Street, where the towers will rise. About 250 people attended the party, according to Defortuna.
Faena Residences is the second Faena-branded project in Miami-Dade County, after the Faena District in Miami Beach that includes condos, a hotel, bazaar, and an event and show venue. Faena also has projects in New York and Buenos Aires, with plans to expand to Tulum and the Middle East.
The goal is to bring the brand’s style and cultural offerings to the Miami River, Faena told The Real Deal on Saturday after his speech on stage, describing the brand.
“Faena is Faena. Faena is a place like no other,” he said. It’s “a place of fantasy, a place of entertainment, a place for fun.”
Faena Residences will be the first part of KAR and Fortune’s three-phase project spanning over 5 acres in the Miami River District. Faena will be a partner in the future phases. The three lots are adjacent to the Wind, Ivy and Mint condo towers that were completed from 2008 to 2010.
The developers stayed mum about plans for the additional phases. Karmely cited interconnectivity among the phases, creating a shared space partly through the landscaping and a hub for education. Faena Residences’ sky bridge will be home to a movie theater, event space underneath a cathedral-like dome, library, demonstration kitchen, recording studio and other features that create a “community,” he said.
Faena Residences is one of the last projects by the late architect Rafael Viñoly, Karmely said. Viñoly died in 2023.
Construction is expected to start mid or late next year, Defortuna said. The towers are expected to be completed in 2029.
Married couple Raphaella and Christian Sigel, jewelers and real estate developers from Brazil, are among those who already reserved a unit. They said they are buying a two-bedroom vacation home for about $2 million.
“We discovered Faena when we went to Buenos Aires, and we stayed in the Faena hotel,” Christian Sigel said, adding that they looked at other branded condos in South Florida and settled on Faena.
Dr. Ash Beharrie, a kidney specialist who lives in Sunrise, is buying a 24th-floor condo for his family that they may use as a primary home in the future.
“This is something I want to keep forever,” said Beharri, who also looked at other branded projects in Miami. “Faena is an amazing name.… It spares no expense.”
In fact, waiting a few years until it’s completed is not an issue, Beharrie added. “That’s actually good. It gives me some time to pay for it,” he joked, declining to disclose the unit’s price.
Sanjeev Raman, a technology executive who lives at Elser Hotel & Residences in downtown Miami, is buying an 18th-floor, two-bedroom condo with his wife, as an investment. They may use it as a primary home in the future. “We may end up living in Faena just because we like the brand and the lifestyle it’s offering and the Rose membership,” he said, referring to the Faena Rose exclusive membership club.
Generally, Miami’s new condo buyer profile has shifted in recent years from primarily foreigners to more domestic buyers, as the city became a magnet for New Yorkers and other out-of-staters during the pandemic.
Now, more New Yorkers are expected to head south due to Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral election win, Defortuna and Karmely said. Mamdani’s calls for higher income and corporate taxes, his promise to freeze rents on rent-stabilized apartments and views on Israel have stirred anxiety among some New Yorkers.
“I think inevitably we will get” New York buyers, Karmely said, adding that some of his friends have recently called him to inquire about speaking with Faena Residences sales representatives. “But I don’t want people to come here because they are escaping something. I want them to come here because this has become the city of the Western Hemisphere.”
Mamdani’s election also is prompting foreign buyers to question whether they should rush to make a presale to avoid a repeat of the pandemic, when condo prices skyrocketed amid high demand, Defortuna said.
“I think that the feeling is they [foreigners] better act now. The urgency is back into the market,” he said, adding that he just came back from a trip to Argentina and Brazil. “Foreign buyers are used to buying preconstruction, paying in installments …. It’s a very natural process for them. But they feel if the New Yorkers come, prices are going to be increasing.”
Faena Residences is expected to be particularly popular among buyers from Argentina, the home country for both Defortuna and Faena, as well as Brazil and Mexico, among other countries, Defortuna said.
The Miami River project will add another branded condo to an already saturated market, as South Florida is the epicenter of branded condo development in North America, according to Knight Frank. Miami has 48 completed projects and 55 planned, trailing only Dubai, according to Savills.
Among planned projects are a Ritz-Carlton in North Bay Village, a Waldorf Astoria under construction in downtown Miami and a Nobu in Brickell.
But the developers aren’t fazed by competition. “Any time is the right time,” to launch Faena Residences, Karmely said.
“There are a lot of people selling burgers: McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s. They can keep selling. What we have here is such a completely different approach,” Karmely said. “There is no other competition because frankly, you cannot pick another project that brings the combination of talent, location, execution, capability and design we have here.”
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