For Martin Melo, a principal with Melo Group, a Miami-based development and general contracting firm, the past year signaled a winding down of the city’s most recent development boom.
“I think we are at the end of the cycle for projects that began shortly after the pandemic,” Melo told The Real Deal. “There is still a lot of inventory being built in the [condo and apartment] sectors, but the market seems much calmer.”
Indeed, the sprint to add more buildings to the Magic City’s skyline has turned into a jog, according to an analysis of city of Miami active permits by TRD. Data show that general contractors held 1,697 active permits valued at about $3.7 billion from August 2022 through August 2025. Zoomed out over a longer stretch, it’s clear the pace is slowing. Between 2019 and 2024, the same analysis showed that general contractors pulled 87,228 permits in Miami, with a total project cost of $14.9 billion.
Last year’s top performing firm, Winchester, Massachusetts-based John Moriarty & Associates, saw its output diminish considerably. In the three-year period between 2022 and 2025, John Moriarty had total project costs of $340.2 million through 65 permits. Between 2019 and 2024, the firm had $1.1 billion in total project costs through 129 permits. As a result, Moriarty dropped to third place in the most recent ranking.
Miami-based Coastal Construction, with a total of $858 million in project costs and 48 active permits between 2022 and 2025, clocked in with the highest dollar amount for a general contracting firm in the city. Melo Group grabbed the second spot among most active general contracting firms with a total of $380.5 million in project costs based on 25 active permits.
Market conditions and rising costs will make it tougher for projects that have not broken ground, according to Melo. “You are still seeing a lot of cranes,” he said. “But next year, it’s going back to a normal pace of construction.”
Melo’s sentiment is shared by other construction industry experts. Uncertainty and volatility created by the Trump administration’s tariffs and immigration crackdown is causing friction between developers, contractors and subcontractors over how much price increases can be blamed on the White House’s agenda.
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Passing the buck
Tariffs on imported materials have become a persistent issue reshaping construction costs and contracts in Miami and nationally. Recent U.S. trade policies have significantly increased the cost of critical construction materials.
Steel and aluminum imports saw tariffs jump from 25 percent to 50 percent this year, with additional baseline tariffs applied broadly across other imported goods. Experts estimate material import tariffs affecting construction have surged to an effective rate near 28 percent, potentially rising higher depending on trade negotiations and retaliatory tariffs.
Yet, general contractors and subcontractors are not seeing eye-to-eye on the root cause of the price increases, noted Tom C. Murphy, Coastal Construction’s co-president.
“I think we are at the end of the cycle for projects that began shortly after the pandemic.”
“I’ve seen an increase in materials and pricing from subcontractors,” Murphy said. “I don’t know how much of it is related to tariffs. The potential or idea that there could be some market volatility will make people a little bit more aggressive in their fee structure.”
Coastal’s projects include St. Regis Brickell, a 50-story condominium with 152 units; a 70-story mixed-use high-rise with a combined 789 condos and apartments at Miami Worldcenter by Nafali Group; and 2600 Biscayne, another mixed-use tower with multifamily and retail by Oak Row Equities in Edgewater.
Melo told TRD that his firm has seen cost jumps for a small segment of construction materials, like the price of faucets and elevator parts increasing by 10 percent to 20 percent. Yet, the cost of concrete has remained stable, he said.
Disagreements over tariffs are also influencing negotiations between general contractors and developers, said Elizabeth “Liz” Coppolecchia, a construction lawyer and partner at Coral Gables-based law firm Weiss Serota.
“Contractors want protection in contracts against unexpected tariff increases, while developers seek to limit their liability after signing agreements,” Coppolecchia said. “Tariff provisions have become standard negotiation points in contracts here.”
Labored labor
Miami’s labor market within the construction sector remains under pressure from several factors, including ongoing immigration enforcement actions. Earlier this year, federal immigration raids and crackdowns created uncertainty for many contractors, especially in markets in Florida that rely on immigrant workers.
“I don’t want to take a political stance on this, but immigration has obviously affected this to some extent,” Coppolecchia said, noting the construction labor pool has been in decline since before the second Trump administration.
“This has been kind of progressing since the Covid days,” she said. “Contractors are having a harder time getting the amount of manpower that they need for these massive developments.”
Still, Murphy and Melo said they have not dealt with any firsthand labor disruptions with their projects.
“We were blessed not to have experienced anything of any real significance,” Murphy said. “Really, we heard about what was happening through word of mouth. It’s really tough to pinpoint what the impact has been where some of the actual raids have occurred.”
Melo echoed Murphy’s assessment: “I can’t speak for subcontractors, but we haven’t felt any impact.”
Risk assessment
As the next development cycle begins, general contractors are concerned about a glut of projects that may not get shovels in the dirt.
“I think contractors would probably worry that developers are biting off more than they can chew,” Coppolecchia said. “I think developers are pushing for schedules that are a little tough to meet and may not necessarily reap the benefits that they’re expecting.”
Miami’s boom has also created a pool of new players thinking they can easily get into the development game and make money, added Coastal’s Murphy.
“I’m concerned about the influx of unsophisticated and inexperienced teams and individuals that want to get into the real estate industry,” Murphy said. “They overpay for a property, start to develop plans only to find out that the project doesn’t make real sense. You wind up with a hyper-market where everyone raises their prices, and then the bottom falls out.”
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