While condo sales across Miami have broadly slumped in recent years, one sector of the market is booming — ultra-luxury sales in apartments that haven’t even been built yet.
The Residences at Mandarin Oriental Miami on Brickell Key, a manmade island next to the financial center, has sold $1.7 billion worth of condos before breaking ground on the project, David Martin, president of the developer Swire Properties, said in an interview.
Those sales include two record-breaking penthouses for about $50 million a piece. The buyers are about 65% domestic, higher than is typical for Miami’s top end of the
market, which has historically drawn more international clients. Out-of-state investors hail from California, New York and Massachusetts.
Swire, which also developed the mixed-use Brickell City Centre, is self-financing the construction of the towers that are slated to be completed in 2030. Proceeds from the sale of its City Centre assets and part of the deposits from buyers can be tapped for funding, Martin said.
Buyers from the finance and tech industries are driving demand and many people are paying all in cash, Martin said. Official ground breaking happens this week, marked by a party Thursday evening.
“The economy of Miami has changed at the top end almost beyond recognition,” Martin said. “People are just beginning to understand what that means.”
Martin cited two large office projects in Brickell as drivers for a five-year “runway” of activity in th
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e area that’s benefiting sales. Banco Santander SA is constructing a tower at 1401 Brickell Avenue while Citadel has started work at their site just a few blocks south for its headquarters. Both are expected to be around 50 floors high and attract varied tenants.
At Swire’s construction site, where a previous Mandarin Oriental hotel was demolished earlier this year, the 66-floor south tower will have 228 residences with 80% of them already sold. On the north side, a 33-floor building will house a 121-room hotel along with residences which are 25% sold.
Swire declined to comment on total construction costs or how much it will collect in sales.
Swire is part of the corporate family tree of a 200-year-old company that owns Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. and mostly operates in Asia. It’s been in the Miami market for more than 40 years. In the late 1970s, Swire began buying up land on Brickell Key.
Since sales started for the south tower in 2024, prices have jumped 30%. Some 30% of buyers thus far plan to use the condos as their primary residence with 60% making it a second home, Martin said.
