From the September 3, 2004 print edition of the South Florida Business Journal
From the print edition
Presales for trio's Duo pass $130 million
Ed Duggan

The foundation and piling work for the 398-unit Duo condominium is under way, part of a fast-track program that may save $5 million for the project's developer, Triad Housing Partners.

"The twin 25-story buildings are virtually identical, so the forms can be shifted and subcontractors can go from one building to the other doing identical tasks," said Oliver Pfeffer, one of Triad's three 30-something principals.

Duo is set on a portion of the Diplomat Mall site in Hallandale Beach overlooking the Diplomat Golf Course.

"The speed of doing two towers at the same time also saves a great deal on the interest carry in addition to the labor and material economies of scale," Pfeffer said.

Sales have already passed the $130 million mark.

In the opening weekend, 356 of the 398 units sold for an average $330,000, totaling more than $117 million.

"We've had a lot of wow days, but this one was over the top," said Carolyn Block, co-owner of the Premier Sales Group, excusive sales agent for Duo.

Pfeffer said Premier did everything possible to prevent speculation up to and including turning down a million-dollar check from a broker who wanted to tie up two dozen or more units.

Today, there are fewer than a dozen units left, including some penthouses whose prices, Pfeffer said, were deliberately price-loaded to prevent quick sales.

"They should be easy sales at completion," he said.

Not everyone sees the condo market growing to the sky with double-digit annual price increases.

Linda R. Lawrence, a registered investment advisor in Miami, sees black clouds on the real estate horizon.

"The real estate market is looking very scary to me," she said in her weekly newsletter to clients at lawrenceiinvesting.com. "It's trading like the techs back in '99: superheated, going straight up."

Adjustable interest-only mortgages and no-money-down deals may be signs of a market top, she wrote. "Conditions like these cannot last for long."

E-mail residential real estate writer Ed Duggan at eduggan@bizjournal.com.
http://www.bizjournals.com/industries/real_estate/residential/2004/09/06/southflorida_story4.html?f=et180

great news, mor towers!

HALLANDALE BEACH | REDEVELOPMENT

On the rise once again

With the concrete starting to pour, Hallandale Beach's redevelopment is well underway.

BY HECTOR FLORIN

hflorin@herald.com

Hallandale Beach, haven of retirees and early-bird dinner buffets, bridge clubs and condo socials, now carries the label of South Florida's newest boomtown.

Following years of stagnant population growth, the condominiums again are soaring toward the sky, restaurants are turning into sports bars, and white-haired gals and gents are making way for young families and singles.

The coastal city of 35,000 could add 10,000 new residents by the end of the decade thanks to thousands of new condos now under construction or on the drawing boards. These projects could potentially shed Hallandale Beach's image as a steppingstone to heaven.

''It's no longer Grandma's Hallandale,'' resident Sue Ward said.

The development market has trickled north to Hallandale Beach from neighboring Aventura and Sunny Isles Beach, where booms in the mid-1990s transformed those new cities. And like the northern Miami-Dade County cities, buyers bought into Hallandale Beach's location between Miami and Fort Lauderdale and along the beach.

And it's more than just talk. The concrete for the first phase of The Beach Club, at State Road A1A and Hallandale Beach Boulevard, marks the beginning of the first significant residential growth in the city in about 30 years.

NEW PROJECTS

More than 2,800 new residential units are expected by the end of 2006, including:

• 398 units at Duo, on the site of the old Diplomat Mall

• 1,255 units in three towers at The Beach Club, with each building towering past 30 stories

• The first 500 of a possible 1,500 units at Gulfstream Park.

The Beach Club's website touts Hallandale Beach as ''the new place to live.'' The Beach Club, Duo and Ocean Marine Yacht Club -- the three largest projects off the ground -- are offering such amenities as spas, sun decks, fitness centers and restaurants.

''They're selling out as quickly as we've ever seen in the Hallandale and Hollywood area,'' said Bart Segall, a local Realtor for 12 years.

While real estate speculators are in on the boom, so are the younger families that characterized the beginning of Hallandale Beach's metamorphosis in the mid-1990s.

The 2000 Census reported the city's median age dropped from 63 to 52, and some believe it could drop below 50 by 2010. Ninety percent of those who bought condos at Duo are below the age of 55. Younger couples are moving into the older condominiums that sprouted in the 1960s and '70s.

Local businesses are adapting. The old Diplomat Mall, practically a wasteland for more than a decade, has been remodeled, renamed RK Diplomat Center, and now features shops including Starbucks Coffee, a sushi restaurant, Low Fat No Fat Cafe, and a beauty salon and spa.

CHANGING SCENE

Eddie Hill's diner on U.S. 1, established in 1949, now offers a wide menu of sushi and Asian food. Red Fish Blue Fish restaurant is converting into a sports bar and adding an outdoor deck with a DJ booth. Its new name will be the Upper Deck Ale and Sports Grill.

Could this have happened 10 years ago?

''No, no, no, no,'' said manager Brett Allen Abramson. ``People are dying out and young people are coming in.''

Meanwhile, owners of the famed Manero's Restaurant said the loss of its core of elderly customers accelerated its closing in May after 50 years. A developer may buy the site, near the Intracoastal Waterway, and build condominiums.

The city planned for the growth by seeing that roads, storm sewers and the municipal water system were all kept up to date.

The city has not paid developers to move in and officials have stayed ahead of growth, Mayor Joy Cooper said. ``We're not giving away the farm in Hallandale Beach. We're really working toward reasonable-quality development that won't impact the quality of life to our residents. We're very sensitive to that.''

It's the proposed Gulfstream Park development, with its 1,500 units, 30-screen movie theater and town center, that city leaders predict could become the jewel of Hallandale Beach.

But with all the development comes traffic, a South Florida trademark that's only exacerbated by growth.

The stretch of Hallandale Beach Boulevard east of U.S. 1 is the city's busiest, with 48,500 cars a day. Duo and the Beach Club are along that stretch, and there is no space to expand the road.

''We're facing what almost every city is going to face in Florida,'' City Commissioner Joe Gibbons said.

Vice Mayor William Julian, talking by telephone while in traffic on Hallandale Beach Boulevard on a recent Thursday afternoon, called the city's development boom a potential success that must be reined in when completed.

''After these projects, I would like to take a break and see how we can deal with the traffic and how it's going to affect the city and the services we have to provide the residents,'' said Julian, who's lived in the city for more than 40 years. ``We just can't handle much more. Our roads are as wide as they can get.''
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/local/states/florida/counties/broward_county/9874009.htm?1c

ITS TRUE, RENNER, ITS TRUE !! :) , The ONLY WAY IS UP !, according to the MAYOR of Miami-Dade County in a statement a couple of years ago, " WE Can't Build into the EVERGLADES Anymore, Building Out into the Glades is NO MORE , The ONLY WAY to BUILD is to BUILD UP ". SOUTH FLORIDA, Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach Counties are at their LIMITS to the WEST, SO the ONLY WAY IS UPWARDS towards the Heavens. ITS Happening Everywhere in the TRIO Counties of South Florida, everywhere you look down here is Construction, its a mad house of Cranes and dirt and truck traffic. As long as Interest Rates hold steady, which they will for at least another 6 months, according to www.interest.com I see Tall buildings everywhere in South Florida rising to the skies. ITS HAPPENING and its Going to be GREAT !!! :cheers: