WORLD PROPERTY CHANNEL ®

(MIAMI, FL) -- Just when everybody thought the frenzied Miami new condo development scene was stabilizing, here comes a brand new undertaking.

Evangeline Gouletas

Evangeline Gouletas, a well-known South Florida philanthropic and real estate personality, plans to break ground in November on a multi-million-dollar, 35-story, 369-unit at 900 S. Miami Ave.

The project has a tentative 22-month development schedule, delivering the units just in time for the 2011 and 2012 winter tourism season.

(Real Estate Channel has posted the first of a two-part exclusive overview of the Miami condo market today. Part Two will appear Monday, Aug. 31.)

"This developer is betting that by delivering an above-average product with functional layouts, spacious balconies, an expansive pool deck, and smart building technology that buyers will see this project as a strategic way to purchase now while still waiting out the absolute bottom," says Peter Zalewski, a principal at  Condo Vultures LLC. in Bal Harbour, FL.

Peter Zalewski

"We don't know how Skyline at Mary Brickell Village will ultimately work out but rest assured we, like everyone else, will be watching to see if Evangeline Gouletas can pull this off."

Nearly 50 percent of the project has been presold at prices starting at $275 per square foot with 20 percent deposits. More than half of the contracts are with individuals who rolled over their original deposits placed back in 2005 when the project was first planned and presold.

"No one knows definitively if we are at the bottom of the residential real estate market in coastal South Florida,"  says  Zalewski.

"If Gouletas -- a veteran developer who has built more than 30,000 units nationwide -- can successfully proceed with a financed condo tower at this time, everyone will be forced to rethink their perception about the Greater Downtown Miami residential market."

The units at Skyline at Mary Brickell Village are sized from 1,007 square feet  to 2,894 square feet.

Developers, fueled by a flurry of speculators, constructed nearly 23,000 units in a 60-block stretch of Greater Downtown Miami from 2003 to early next year when the last units come online, according to the Condo Vultures® Official Condo Buyers Guide To Miami™.

In the four decades prior to the real estate boom, developers had constructed only about 11,500 units in the same areas of Brickell Avenue, Downtown Miami, and the Biscayne Boulevard Corridor, according to the Guide.  

Zalewski notes that at the end of the second quarter of 2009, developers were still in possession of nearly 9,400 units that had not yet closed or were still being constructed.

In the last 90 days, however, at least three condo projects - 1060 Brickell, Marina Blue, and Brickell on the River - have all but sold out to a flurry of all-cash buyers looking for discounts.

At least one other Downtown Miami tower is said to be sold out although the closings have not yet been recorded.

Simultaneously, bulk buyers are closing deals of 10 units or more at an increasing pace.

"In fact, five bulk deals with 141 units have traded for $28.5 million, or an average of $164 per square foot, in Greater Downtown Miami since June," according to the Condo Vultures® Bulk Deals Database.

The last deal to close traded at $126 per square foot for the entire 63-unit tower with two-story loft units and a rooftop swimming pool.

The project, Brickell Station Villas, is located across the street to the west of the Mary Brickell Village outdoor retail center and Gouletas' proposed new tower. A Metrorail train station and elevated tracks with a park below on the street level separate the Brickell Station Villas from Mary Brickell Village.

On the east side of the Metrorail tracks, the Skyline at Mary Brickell Village condo tower would stand on top of the western edge of the namesake retail center located in the heart of Greater Downtown Miami's Brickell Avenue area.

The two-block long mall developed by Gouletas features a variety of shops, cafes, bars, and restaurants, including P.F. Chang's China Bistro, Rosa Mexicano, and The Oceanaire Seafood Room.

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