Picture this: You’re 59 stories up in your private oceanfront condo, enjoying an ocean breeze, taking in an Atlantic sunrise—and basking in the gleam of your Lamborghini or Bugatti parked right beside you.
Believe it or not, that’s the experience one developer is promising prospective residents of a glass luxury tower under construction in Sunny Isles Beach, Fla., that caters to ultra-wealthy sports car enthusiasts. It’s even named after a car: the Porsche Design Tower Miami.
“What we really tried to do is create a home in the sky, and that includes a garage,” said Gil Dezer, president of Dezer Development, with offices in New York City and South Florida.
“A sky garage” for each of the tower’s 132 units—some of which list for as high as $25 million—is among the features that will set the tower apart from every other luxury residence in the world, according to Dezer, one of the largest oceanfront property owners in Sunny Isles Beach, a barrier island resort north of Miami.
Dezer partnered with Germany-based Porsche Design Group, founded by the grandson of the man who created the iconic Porsche 911, in designing the cylindrical tower and its sleek glass exterior, the centerpiece of which is its car elevator system.
The elevators will lift cars to all levels of the tower and use a turntable to slip them into each resident’s private garage. The entire process is automated, so the car engines remain off. While a handful of other buildings have automated car elevators, Dezer said the robotics and the ability of an owner to walk from his garage into his home will make Porsche Tower unique. The system will include three car elevators.
“It is the height of cool,” Dezer said. “The inspiration was to create something that had never been created before and most likely will never be done again, at least not in this market.”
The condominiums are listed at between $4.5 million and $25 million, with a maintenance fee of about 65 cents per square foot depending on the size of the unit.
Pampered Porsches
The units will range in size from 4,200 to 17,000 square feet. Most will have two-car garages, but some will have space enough for four. With the option to separate living areas and the garage with glass walls, the cars can become part of the décor and, thus, need to be kept clean. So the building will have a “car concierge” to wash the cars and perform regular maintenance, including tire rotations.
For hardcore sports car enthusiasts, the tower offers six “man caves”—expansive areas where a gallery of cars can share space with a lounge, bar and billiard table. The developer is billing these as a place where friends can share cognac and cigars as they admire some high-end chrome and rubber. The caves cost between $1.8 million and $2.5 million each, he added.
There will be services for the human residents, too—even the ones who may not care much about cars. In addition to 24-hour valet and security service, the tower will include a spa with treatment rooms featuring Vichy showers; a sundeck with pool and beverage service; a sunset terrace with twin, oversized tubs; an exercise facility overlooking the beach; an oceanfront ballroom; and multipurpose club rooms that include movie theaters and game rooms. Most units will have oversized bathrooms, pools and summer kitchens on 15-foot-wide outdoor balconies, he said.
“It’s like staying in a hotel without all the guests you don’t know,” he said.
The developer broke ground on the site in April. With about three-quarters of the units presold for about $500 million, the tower is expected to open in early 2016.
The majority of units will probably serve as vacation homes, predominantly for wealthy residents in the U.S. Northeast and South America, with maybe 30% of the units occupied year-round, Dezer said.
Dezer has already built eight towers, including some with the Trump name, in Sunny Isles Beach, and his family owns some 27 acres of oceanfront property. He said he has a 20-year exclusive license with Porsche Design and plans to build unique luxury buildings in other markets.
—Colleen O’Dea
Trump Brings Hotel-Condo Brand To Vancouver
Donald Trump, the billionaire New York real estate investor, said he formed a partnership with Canadian and Malaysian developers to bring his brand of luxury lodging and residences to Vancouver.
The C$360 million ($350 million) Trump International Hotel & Tower Vancouver will be the second Canadian hotel-and-condominium development to carry the name, joining a 65-story Trump tower in Toronto that opened last year. Planned for Georgia Street in downtown Vancouver and scheduled for completion in mid-2016, the 63-story structure will have 147 hotel rooms and 218 condominiums, Trump said in a statement.
“We had another opportunity in Vancouver and this was the one we chose,” Trump, chief executive officer of closely held Trump Organization, said last month at a press conference announcing his involvement in the project. “And believe me, I have no second thoughts even about it. This is going to be special.”
Holborn Group, based in Vancouver, and TA Global Group of Kuala Lumpur are building the Trump tower on a site originally slated for development under the Ritz-Carlton brand, Joo Kim Tiah, Holborn’s chief executive officer, said at the press conference. That project, also involving Holborn, was canceled in 2009 amid the global financial crisis.
Trump Organization will manage the hotel and assist in the marketing of the condominium units.
It’s unclear how the Vancouver tower and Trump brand will be received by potential condominium buyers, Michael Ferreira, a Vancouver-based real estate market analyst at Urban Analytics Inc., said.
“Vancouver doesn’t strike you as a Trump kind of city—it’s not a New York, it’s not a Toronto—it’s Lotus Land, the relaxed West Coast,” he said. “We haven’t historically liked to show off our wealth.”
—Bloomberg News
Entrepreneurs Leading Wealth Race, Report Says
Entrepreneurship is outpacing inheritance as the leading driver of wealth creation, particularly in emerging markets, according to a new report by Barclays.
Wealth accumulation by the world’s entrepreneurs means that “spheres of affluence have shifted away from traditional economic centers, including the U.S. and other developed markets,” Barclays said.
The report, Origins and Legacy: The Changing Order of Wealth Creation, is based on a survey of 2,000 people worldwide with at least $1.5 million in total net worth and 200 people with at least $15 million. It is also based on interviews with entrepreneurs, academics, professionals and other experts.
Forty percent of the respondents said their main source of wealth came from the sale of a business or business profits, compared with 26% who said it was from inheritance.
“While entrepreneurship is becoming the predominant source of wealth creation across the globe, a higher proportion of respondents from emerging markets are citing accumulation of wealth through entrepreneurship than in the U.S. or Japan,” Barclays said.
In India, 59% of high-net-worth individuals said their wealth is from entrepreneurship and in South Africa it is 68%, compared with 21% in the United States and 35% in Japan.
Wealth is being created twice as quickly in developing regions such as the Asia-Pacific area and Africa, where it took high-net-worth individuals an average of 12 years and 16 years, respectively, to accumulate their wealth, according to Barclays. In the U.S. and Europe, it took respondents an average of 28 years and 23 years, respectively, to accumulate their wealth.
“Our survey suggests that emerging markets have been able to take greater advantage of the effects of globalization, and as a result create and accumulate wealth at a more rapid pace than those in developed markets,” said Christopher Johnson, director and wealth advisor at Barclays Wealth and Investment Management.
“Developing markets have benefited greatly by an exposure to new information through technology. As the number of wealthy individuals continues to increase in these markets, planning for the future purpose of that wealth becomes increasingly important,” he added.
Entrepreneurs and business owners have a higher tolerance for risk and a greater tendency to embrace volatility in their personal investments than those who inherited their wealth or earned or saved it over time, Barclays said. As a result, entrepreneurs and business owners surveyed were more likely to say that their wealth has fluctuated a great deal over time.
Attitudes toward philanthropy also differed. Respondents who identified themselves as entrepreneurs were less likely to give to charity solely out of a sense of duty and responsibility than those who have inherited their wealth or acquired it over time through earnings and savings, Barclays said.
Despite that, entrepreneurs are more likely to become involved with philanthropic opportunities throughout their lifetime as a way of utilizing their skills and business acumen. Forty-one percent said that they intend to give away their wealth during their lifetime, compared with only 27% of those who acquired their wealth through earnings or savings.
—Karen DeMasters
