Swire Adds Residential Project To Its Miami Portfolio

Hong Kong-based developer Swire Properties is expanding its US footprint by teaming up with a Colombian businessman to build a condo tower across the street from its Brickell City Centre project in downtown Miami.

Swire will develop a 72,000 square foot plot into a residential project with Isanic Hyundai Trading, a local developer headed by former car importer Carlos Mattos, a Swire spokesperson revealed to Miami Today.

The project at 650 South Miami Avenue will form an extension of Swire’s mega mixed-use complex Brickell City Centre across the street, which consists of a shopping centre, two office buildings, a hotel and a pair of luxury residential towers.

Residential Project Set To Lure Buyers

Swire’s latest Miami project will involve redeveloping a plot of land which once housed local stores including a century-old bar. The residential project is expected to attract buyers due to its proximity to the Hong Kong developer’s Brickell City Centre in the fast-growing Brickell district of Greater Downtown Miami.

The median home price in Miami is $335,000, according to the National Association of Realtors, but Swire’s units in the prime high-rise are expected to sell for significantly more. George C Jalil, chairman of the Miami Association of Realtors, told Miami Today that lenders are likely to offer lower down payments if Swire can sell some units at $450,000 before the project’s completion.

Swire Building Two Taikoo Shings In Miami

Hong Kong-based Swire is betting big on Miami. Having opened the first phase of its 1.4 million square foot (133,528 square metre) Brickell City Centre in Miami’s Brickell financial district in 2016, the developer is commencing the second phase this year.

Phase two, called One Brickell City Centre, is planned as a mixed-use development comprising retail, office, hotel and residential space in an 80-storey tower, and will incorporate the 1.55-acre site at 700 Brickell Avenue acquired by Swire Properties in 2013. The development will be connected to Brickell City Centre, the company said in its interim report.

The new residential project, Brickell City Centre and One Brickell City Centre have a combined site area of 14.8 acres (59,893 square metres), almost twice the size of Swire’s flagship residential development Taikoo Shing in Hong Kong.

“In Miami, there is limited new supply of Grade-A office space and office rents are expected to be stable,” said the company in its report. Its pair of office buildings Two Brickell City Centre and Three Brickell City Centre are 75 percent and 100 percent occupied respectively as of mid-2017.

Swire is boosting its overseas investments elsewhere in the world. Just last week, the top Hong Kong builder announced it was moving ahead on its second retail project in Shanghai, by purchasing a 50 percent stake in the development venture in the city’s Qiantan area.