CLIENT NEWS: Ari Pearl, Jonathan Leifer launch sales of Bay Harbor Towers
November 8, 2023Ari Pearl and Jonathan Leifer are launching sales of their planned waterfront Bay Harbor Islands condominium, with Edgardo Defortuna’s brokerage at the helm.
Pearl’s Hallandale Beach-based PPG Development and Leifer’s New York-based L3C Capital are partnering on the eight-story, 44-unit Bay Harbor Towers project at 10143 East Bay Harbor Drive, according to a press release. Condos in the building will span 1,900 square feet to 5,000 square feet, a spokesperson confirmed. Prices for the two-, three- and four-bedroom units will begin at $1.9 million, the release shows. Penthouse pricing has yet to be announced. Construction is set to be completed in early 2026, a spokesperson confirmed.
Fortune Development Sales, a division of Defortuna’s Fortune International Group, is leading sales for Bay Harbor Towers, according to the release.
“We’re obviously selling right now in a new world,” Pearl said. “Our project is priced for today’s construction numbers as well as today’s interest rates.”
The project was designed by Kobi Karp, with interiors by Pompano Beach-based Steven G, the release shows. Amenities will include indoor and outdoor pools, hot and cold plunges, a fitness center and spa facilities. Six of the units will also have private pools, Pearl confirmed. The planned development will also have a 13-slip private marina.
Pearl said buyers are expected to be Northeasterners, Europeans and South Americans, mostly looking for a second or third home. He noted their decision to hire Fortune for the project’s sales drew largely on the brokerage’s reach in international markets.
“They have great access to the international buyers, especially the South American buyers,” he said.
Pearl and Leifer established a joint venture to buy out an older building on the site for $32 million in August of last year, and have since demolished it. The previous Bay Harbor Towers was an Art-Deco building constructed in 1956. Its residents banded together to sell in the wake of the deadly 2021 Surfside condo collapse.
Bay Harbor Towers is one of many residential projects in the development pipeline for Bay Harbor Islands. More than a dozen projects with hundreds of units are planned for the islands that were previously long overlooked by developers. Pearl said the changing landscape of lending could pose a threat to some of the other projects in the pipeline.
“We have our construction financing, so this project is going to get built,” he said. “In markets like this with high interest rates, a lot of projects won’t end up happening because they won’t be able to get loans.”
Bay Harbor Towers isn’t the only project with financing nailed down. Jonathan Landau landed a $29 million construction loan and launched sales for his Bay Harbor Islands project, Indian Creek Residences, earlier this year. The eight-story, nine-unit building’s prices start at $6.4 million. Raimundo Onetto’s Alta Developers secured a $20.3 million construction loan in August for its planned seven-story, 30-unit Alana condos in Bay Harbor Islands.
