Statistical Source: The Miami Herald 6/19/08

Everyone is well aware of Miami’s downtown building oversupply, but just how bad is it? In the last six years, 22,737 units were built or are now under construction in Miami’s urban core — more than double the number built in the nearly 40 previous years, it’s a large figure, but still less than many predicted. Perhaps no section of Florida has seen more building in recent years than downtown Miami’s urban core.

However, with the housing market turning in 2006, the credit crunch of 2007, and inexperienced developers having to cope with rising construction costs & mismanagement, many proposed projects never went beyond the planning stages. With few new projects starting in the past two years, the real scope and size of Miami’s downtown condo craze is starting to come into focus. Although the downtown market still has a vast surplus of condos- it is not 50,000 or 80,000 new units, it’s estimated that 22,000 new units. The bad news is that it is still 22,000 new units.

Downtown Miami is well known for its many high rises made up of luxury condos like 50 Biscayne, Marquis Miami, 900 Biscayne, Ten Museum Park, and Icon Brickell office buildings and a few company headquarters. While the Four Seasons Miami Hotel may be the most expensive, fanciest and the largest, it could eventually be dethroned by a building that will truly pierce the skyline if certain local developers manage to have their way.

Designed by the renowned Kobi Karp, a pair of 1,022 foot buildings soaring over ninety stories into the Miami skyline to be known as the Empire World Towers are being planned and are notable not only for their incredible height, but also for the three “sky bridges” that connect one building to the other and are likely going to be translucent, suggesting a feeling of walking on air hundreds of feet above the ground.

Although they are expected to function as a high rise condo and/or residential property, many people might look at this and wonder why anyone would find this worthwhile considering that condo sales and Miami and Miami Beach real estate has, overall, slowed.

The Empire World Towers still remain a massive work in progress and the developer doesn’t expect to finish the building at least until 2010, two years from now when most have concluded that real estate should be doing significantly better. Therefore, the Empire World Towers could potentially become a prime building for investors seeking their next residential property investment.

The project is still in its infancy and has yet to be approved by the Miami City Commission. Assuming it manages to clear all the red tape, Empire World Towers could be an integral piece towards reinforcing tourism in Miami. After all, people will definitely want to visit to see for themselves what would become the tallest building in Miami. Already located in one of South Florida’s finest urban communities, Empire World Towers has tons of potential.

Miami Beach High-Rise Luxury Residential Condos:

• Continuum South Beach
• Portofino Tower
• Icon South Beach
• Murano Grande
• Akoya Miami Beach
• Setai South Beach
• Fontainebleau II
• Green Diamond Tower
• Blue Diamond Tower

Most of these residential condos are luxury and located directly on the ocean with direct access to the beach.  Almost all of these condos new and less than ten years old.