When wealth poured into South Florida, the expansion found these real estate players best positioned to capitalize on the changing region.
Nadim Ashi
Luxury Condo & Hotel Developer
Founder & CEO, Fort Partners
Nadim Ashi’s Four Seasons Hotel and Residences at the Surf Club, an oceanfront luxury hotel and condo development in Surfside, did well with buyers when it was completed nearly a decade ago. But it wasn’t until the post-pandemic boom when sellers and buyers set records with their deals that it became clear that projects he touched turned to gold.
Ashi is founder and CEO of Fort Partners, a Miami-based development and hospitality firm that also has projects in Italy and the Bahamas. Born in Liberia to Lebanese parents, he moved to Florida in the early 2000s after making his initial fortune in IT, and set his sights on real estate. After the 2008 crash, he bought up incomplete developments and finished them, according to reports. In 2012, he picked up the old Surf Club property.
Through his partnership with the Four Seasons brand, Ashi has bought or developed most of the Four Seasons properties in southern Florida, including Miami and Palm Beach. Current projects include the Four Seasons Residences in Coconut Grove, which he is co-developing with Ugo Colombo, and Fouquet’s Hotel and Residences Miami which he is building with Craig Robins and Bippy Siegal. Fort is also expected to bring a luxury hospitality component to Watson Harbour, a mixed-use development that the Motwanis and BH3 are building on Miami’s Watson Island.
— Katherine Kallergis
Steve Ross
Developer
Founder, Related Companies;
Founder & CEO, Related Ross
While most octogenarians wind down their business empires, developer Steve Ross, 86, launched his next legacy-defining project: remaking downtown West Palm Beach in his own image, a world-building campaign he’s since expanded across Palm Beach County.
Ross set his ambitions in motion early in the pandemic, dovetailing neatly with longtime local boosters’ push to turn the area into “Wall Street South.” He supercharged and sped up the effort, finding a political leadership, including West Palm Beach Mayor Keith James, which is supportive and at times downright awestruck with him.
Ross has also put money behind a Vanderbilt University campus, and become a civic benefactor and champion of upward mobility.
He started with offices, amassing a portfolio of 11 buildings developed, purchased, under construction or planned, including One Flagler, the “hedge fund tower” finished last year, and now 10 and 15 CityPlace. He’s filled them largely with financial firms via his New York network, while also chasing tech, landing ServiceNow at 10 CityPlace as the largest South Florida office lease of last year. On the residential side, he’s completed the 322-unit Laurel rental tower and has three luxury condo projects underway, while continuing to scoop up sites.
South Florida’s top problems — a lack of affordable housing pushing out locals, and a shortage of private schools thwarting the influx of newcomers — aren’t lost on Ross. He’s invested in senior affordable housing, plans his first Live Local Act project, and his Wellington development will have a private school. He also pumped $100 million into Pine Crest, bankrolling a big portion of the Fort Lauderdale private school’s expansion into West Palm.
Ross also bought the 123-acre Boca Raton Innovation Campus, holds controlling stakes in the Miami Dolphins and Formula One Miami and owns Hard Rock Stadium.
— Lidia Dinkova
Ken Griffin
Investor & Developer
Founder, Citadel & Citadel Securities
Most South Florida real estate players are content to ride a boom, letting it carry their business to new heights. Ken Griffin doesn’t ride market upswings — he creates them.
The billionaire hedge funder, developer, investor, major GOP donor and South Florida benefactor is more of an architect than beneficiary of the region’s transformation, wielding his fortune and influence to supercharge Miami’s wealth boom and keep business-friendly Republicans in power statewide. His net worth is pegged at $60 billion.
Citadel and Citadel Securities’ 2022 headquarters move from Chicago to Brickell is widely credited for touching off a wave of financial-firm relocations to Miami. Griffin tapped Related Companies to develop Citadel’s $2.5 billion, 1.7 million-square-foot headquarters tower.
His real estate conquests tend to come with a splash: His Brickell HQ site purchase was for a record $363 million and his Coconut Grove estate deal for $106.9 million was the first Miami-Dade residential sale to top $100 million. In Brickell, Griffin also plans 300 apartments near another office building he has and possibly a separate hotel, and this summer rounded off more than $700 million in real estate investments in the district, capped by the city’s approval to sell him a 121-year-old cottage for $3 million. In Wynwood, Griffin closed on Moishe Mana’s portfolio for over $1 billion and plans a Carnegie Mellon University satellite campus for the neighborhood.
Fittingly, Griffin’s most notable ally in South Florida’s transformation game is the region’s other world-builder: Steve Ross. The pair have put $10 million into a campaign courting executives to move to South Florida.
— Lidia Dinkova
David Martin
Developer
Founder & CEO, Terra
David Martin, founder and CEO of Coconut Grove-based Terra, has been part of and a witness to Miami’s transformation as a native who was born and raised in the city. Martin, partial to Thom Browne clothing, works out of a sleek and modern office suite he built in Coconut Grove through a partnership with the city’s parking authority. His office has a secret passageway directly into the garage, so he can get in and out easily, befitting his spot in the top rungs of the developer hierarchy.
While he has other developments, Martin’s firm is building half a dozen luxury towers from Miami to West Palm Beach, working with brands that include the Well, Jean-Georges Miami Tropic Residences, and Mr. C Residences. In Miami Beach, at least two more waterfront high-rises are planned, although the timelines and brands for those have not yet been disclosed: a slender tower on the site at 1250 West Avenue, formerly a Michael Stern development, and the redevelopment of the Deauville Beach Resort property on the ocean.
The developer is also working on a massive overhaul and upgrade of the Miami Seaquarium that would include a marina that holds nearly 900 boat slips, including superyachts of over 80 feet long.
When his projects succeed, the upside potential is huge. In Coconut Grove, his Well Residences project builds on the momentum created by Terra’s Grove at Grand Bay, Park Grove and Mr. Residences towers in the same neighborhood. In West Palm Beach, he is part of the wave of Miami developers who have followed the money north to billionaire Steve Ross’ domain.
— Katherine Kallergis
Gil Dezer
Luxury Condo Developer
President, Dezer Development
As president of Dezer Development, Gil Dezer helped turn his family’s Sunny Isles Beach holdings, many of which were aging low-rise properties on Motel Row, into a portfolio of luxury condos, including six Trump-branded towers.
While others lost buildings in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, Dezer sold units in the Trump condos one by one to pay off $475 million in loans, paving the way for his next project: the Porsche Design Tower.
That 132-unit ultra-luxury condo, completed in 2017, is home to the Dezervator, a patented car elevator system that brings vehicles to private glass-enclosed sky garages. Dezer’s belief that South Florida’s wealthiest buyers would be willing to pay for more than a traditional condo helped spark what he considers the ultra-luxury trend.
“We weren’t looking for financially sensitive people and therefore, we went to the uber wealthy, and they came,” Dezer said.
Dezer has carried the Dezervator concept into the Bentley Residences, which is under construction. He’s also partnered with other real estate powerhouses on a number of projects, including Rosewood Residences Hillsboro Beach and Icon Beach Waterfront Residences in Hollywood.
— Grace McClung
Jorge Pérez
Developer
Founder & Executive Chairman, Related Group
Miami’s condo king, billionaire Jorge Pérez, was perhaps best positioned for the luxury boom. Pérez and his two eldest sons, Jon Paul and Nick, lead the Related Group, a well-oiled machine which has been building branded residences for decades. Related now works with the St. Regis, Baccarat, Pininfarina, Rosewood, the Ritz-Carlton, Viceroy and other top brands.
They’re even building on Fisher Island, a private island with restricted entry only by ferry, helicopter or boat, home to many of South Florida’s wealthiest residents.
At Rivage Bal Harbour, an oceanfront building Related partnered with Two Roads Development on, a three-story, 35,000-square-foot penthouse hit the market last year for $150 million.
Related, which also has an affordable-housing arm, as well as commercial and mixed-use developments, has pulled back on some projects, but not because of a market shift. On Terminal Island, Related sold a 3.7-acre property previously expected to be developed into condos and then a high-end office building to billionaire hedge fund manager Ken Griffin for $77 million. Griffin is building a private superyacht marina.
— Katherine Kallergis
Melissa Tapanes Llahues and Iris Escarra
Land-use Attorneys
CEO, Bercow Radell Fernandez Larkin & Tapanes;
Co-Chair, Greenberg Traurig’s Land Use Practice
Melissa Tapanes Llahues and Iris Escarra are Miami’s top land-use lawyers, tasked with finding enough common ground among developers, government officials and cities themselves to push through the projects that shape the South Florida skyline.
Lobbying on behalf of billionaire clients is part of the job. Tapanes Llahues, who in April was promoted to CEO of Bercow Radell Fernandez Larkin & Tapanes, represents homebuilder D.R. Horton, developer Witkoff, and Miami’s largest property owner, Moishe Mana, along with clients in Homestead, Hialeah, Doral and unincorporated Miami-Dade. She was raised in a Cuban-American family that instilled in her a belief in the American dream.
“I’ve always had a strong sense of purpose,” she said.
Escarra, who co-chairs Greenberg Traurig’s land use practice, sees the fruits of her labor every time she drives through her hometown, since she’s been a shepherd of all but a few of recent major buildings, with clients like the Related Group, Terra, Mast Capital, the Melo Group and the One Thousand Group. “I love what I do because you can actually see it,” she said.
— Alissa Gary
Edgardo Defortuna
Broker & Developer
Founder & CEO, Fortune International Group
Edgardo Defortuna has capitalized on South Florida’s wealth boom in part by wearing two hats: that of the developer and the broker. (He and his wife Ana Cristina are part of Miami real estate’s elite social circles.) Defortuna is founder and CEO of Fortune International Group, a Brickell-based brokerage and development firm that specializes in condo projects. In 2022, Fortune partnered with Christie’s on the resale brokerage arm to expand its reach.
One of Fortune’s biggest success stories in recent history is its role in selling two penthouses at the Mandarin Oriental Residences on Miami’s Brickell Key for $50 million each, at a record price (for mainland Miami) of about $6,300 per square foot. These contracts were inked before construction began on the two-tower luxury condo and hotel project. Fortune is the exclusive sales and marketing firm for the development, which Swire Properties is developing.
Fortune’s own development projects include Ora by Casa Tua, a planned 76-story short-term rental-friendly condo building in Brickell. — Katherine Kallergis
Tere Blanca
Broker
Founder, Chairman & CEO,
Blanca Commercial Real Estate
Tere Blanca founded Blanca Commercial Real Estate during the depths of the Great Recession, the worst possible time for office leasing, but when out-of-state executives and their firms arrived, ready to pay record rents, her firm was ready.
Blanca CRE’s assignments include Terra’s The Well Bay Harbor Islands, one of a cohort of boutique office projects springing up across coastal Miami-Dade, pitching wellness amenities and aesthetics to recently arrived business leaders. Tom Brady’s family office, TEB Capital Management, is one pre-leased tenant; Man Capital, a global investment firm owned by Egypt’s Mansour family, is another. She also brought in Legacy Wealth Advisors, Dwight Capital and fintech firm NewCo Capital Group.
Blanca has claimed it holds a roughly 30 percent market share of Miami-Dade office leasing since 2018. One of its other assignments is Brickell’s 1450 Brickell Avenue tower, where JP Morgan Chase doubled its office in recent years.
— Lidia Dinkova
Moishe Mana
Investor & Entrepreneur
Moishe Mana touched down in Miami about 2009, buying his first property in Wynwood that year. A businessman, investor and developer, he zeroed in on Wynwood and downtown Miami, assembled a massive portfolio of land and became one of the largest landowners in the city’s urban core. Over the past three years, he’s been in talks with Ken Griffin to sell Mana Wynwood, and the all-cash deal closed in late September for $1.1 billion, marking a record land sale in Florida. Carnegie Mellon University will open a satellite campus on the property, as part of a $3 billion gift from Griffin.
The 30-acre assemblage is home to Mana’s namesake convention center, which hosts events like the III Points Music Festival, and the Wynwood Marketplace and RC Cola Plant. Mana will focus his attention on downtown Miami.
— Katherine Kallergis
Lissette Calderon
Developer
Founder & CEO, Neology Group
Lissette Calderon reshaped some of the Magic City’s overlooked neighborhoods, building a multifamily portfolio that helped bring new residents and investment to areas like the Miami River District and Allapattah.
Her company is now expanding into larger, district-scale projects that blend housing with retail, culture and hospitality, including a three-phase development with the Rubell family and Lion Development Group in Allapattah. This year, a $175 million capital raise gives Calderon’s firm nearly $1 billion in transactional capacity to pursue similar projects across Florida and the Southeast.
After returning to Miami from a stint in New York with an investment banking career, Calderon, a daughter of Cuban immigrants, was among the early developers to Miami River, the neighborhood she grew up in. The developer brought the loft-style apartments she had seen in the Big Apple to the neighborhood. Her projects included Neo Lofts, Neo Vertika and Neo Residences, totaling more than 1,100 units.
“Our investment and development strategy is rooted in understanding where the region is headed [and] where employment and capital are concentrating,” Calderon said.
— Eman Elshahawy
