Condos
Interesting article in today's Miami Herald about the condo market in the area and the strategy a major developer is following:
 Miami’s top condominium developer is planning to emerge from the region’s worst housing bust by picking up where it left off before the economy tanked, and building a shiny new condo tower.   The Related Group, which built more than 15,000 South Florida condos during the housing boom, then found itself fighting off insolvency when the recession hit, is seeking city approval for a new 35-story condo building in Brickell.   Related is set to go before Miami’s Planning, Zoning and Appeals Board on Wednesday to pitch its new project, to be built at 30 SE Sixth St.   Related’s subsidiary, TRG Brickell Station, originally received approval to use that site for a project called “Brickell Station,” in 2006. That condo tower, stalled because of the downturn, was planned to be nearly 600 feet tall, with 232 residences stacked on top of a parking garage.   The new plan scraps the 10-level parking garage, dropping the building’s height to 350 feet, and offers a new name: “My Brickell.” The expected dates for groundbreaking and completion are not listed in the application, and Related executives did not respond to requests for comment.   “To see Related and others move forward to build towers doesn’t surprise me, because it’s an arduous process,” said Peter Zalewski, a principal at CondoVultures, a Bal Harbour-based consultancy. “If you assume that construction takes 18 to 24 months, you start to look at roughly a 2014 delivery. I don’t know that that’s going to make sense two years from now, but if Related were able to build a tower without parking, they’d be able to reduce their costs tremendously.”   Zalewski added that of 22,000 new condos built in downtown Miami since 2003, about 3,200, or 14 percent, remain unsold.