There’s something delightful about digging your toes into the warm sand along a South Florida beach. It’s another matter entirely when it’s your coastal condo sinking into the sand.
That’s what’s happening at the Porsche Design Tower in Miami, a luxurious 60-story condominium on Sunny Isles Beach, a community along the Atlantic just north of Miami, a new study revealing that its one of 35 high rises that have sunk as much as three inches into the sand at a time when the ocean is rising due to global warming.
Opened in 2016, the Porsche tower is one of a growing number of auto-themed residences popping up around Miami – a number of which are now facing legal and financial problems.
Live What You Drive
Over the past century, at least 700 branded real estate projects have popped up around the world, according to Business Insider, and nearly as many, about 650 in all, are now in various stages of construction. That includes a number of auto-themed condo projects that integrate automotive architecture into their design and amenities. The Porsche Design Tower is one of several with a “Deservator,” special elevators that let residents have their vehicles lifted directly up to their condos.
Auto-themed projects have popped up in places like Germany, Spain and Dubai. The Gulf principality not only boasts the Bugatti Residences and the Bentley Residences but its newest project is Mercedes-Benz City , a $10 billion complex with 12 separate towers that just opened this year. That said, Miami has become the heart of the auto-residence trend, with condominium projects linked to brands including Aston Martin, Bentley, Lamborghini, Mercedes-Benz, Pagani and Porsche. Moving into one of these isn’t cheap. The 390 residences in Mercedes-Benz Places in Miami are set to start at around $1.5 million. To buy into the 70-unit Pagani Residences in Miami’s North Bay Village starts at $3 million. And one unit at Miami’s Aston Martin Residences was priced at $59 million.
Trouble in Paradise
Automakers like Mercedes and Porsche typically don’t have any real financial skin in the game. They look to these projects as a way to generate licensing revenue and build their brand imagery. That is, of course, assuming all goes well. But with a number of the ventures in and around Miami, things aren’t going quite as planned – and that means headaches for owners who’ve discovered not all is well in paradise.
The latest problem involves the Porsche Design Tower, the first of the big auto-themed projects in Southern Florida, opening in 2016. It’s a 60-story on a barrier beach with 132 separate residences, and special elevators that let owners drive their vehicles right up to their condos. It’s also one of 35 buildings on Sunny Isles Beach that received some unwelcome news from a newly released study conducted by the University of Miami.
“Almost all the buildings at the coast itself, they’re subsiding,” Falk Amelung, the study’s senior author, a geophysicist at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric and Earth Science, told the Miami Herald “It’s a lot.”
There’s been growing concern about the construction quality – and safety – of Southern Florida housing projects ever since Champlain Tower South in Surfside, Florida collapsed on June 24, 2021, causing the death of 98 people. The good news, according to the university’s study, is that there’s no sign of structural damage at the Porsche complex. But it’s unclear whether the subsidence will continue. And it’s certainly not a great time for any oceanfront property to be sinking, not with global warming expected to raise the sea level along Miami by at least 21 to 54 inches by 2070, according to the Southeast Florida Regional Climate Compact.
Legal Problems Add to Luxury Residence Woes
From a financial standpoint, the Mercedes-Benz Places condo project is already under water. The much-delayed project has been under development since 2015, construction only getting under way five years later. A sales center finally opened last year, though the formal opening was again pushed back to late 2027. The project last week became the subject of a foreclosure lawsuit filed by the Cottonwood Group which alleges the developer, the JDS Development Group, owes nearly $100 million. Interest, meanwhile has been mounting at the rate of $53,621 a day, according to the Real Deal, a local real estate publication.
The lawyers are keeping busy at another auto-themed condo development, the Aston Martin Residences in Miami. In January the condo association filed a lawsuit in Miami-Dade Circuit Court alleging developer German Coto, 10 other companies and seven individuals engaged in “self-dealing” contracts unlawfully using condo association funds. “I’ve never seen this level of arrogance by a developer, such brazen self-dealing,” David Haber, an attorney representing the condo association, told the Miami Herald, estimating the losses amounted to “millions and millions of dollars.”
The Projects Keep Coming
Barely a quarter-mile away from the Porsche Design Tower, the Bentley Residences has its own problems. Developers have even bigger aspirations for this 62-story tower. At a planned 216-units, it already made its mark by requiring the largest residential concrete pour in Florida history, a foundation using 20,000 cubic yards of concrete. As with Porsche, developers are providing condo owners with “deservators” so they don’t have to deal with other residents on regular elevators. But a variety of snags have pushed this project back until at least late 2027.
Despite all the hassles developers and residents have faced, the auto-themed condo projects keep coming. The latest to get going: the Lamborghini Residences. The Italian automaker has lent its name to a 67-story tower in Miami’s Brickell financial district. Details, including the final design and the number of residences have yet to be released but, according to those who cover the Miami real estate market, residents will begin moving into the Lambo-themed condos sometime in 2029.
Â
