New York developers are pouring money into Fort Lauderdale, betting that Miami’s soaring real estate prices and a growing population of younger residents will fuel the city’s emergence as a new South Florida luxury hub, according to a report.
Nearly half of Fort Lauderdale’s downtown development footprint is now tied to New York firms, which account for 4.6 million square feet, Bloomberg reported Friday.
The surge marks a sharp change from the past few years. New York builders represented about 13% of completed projects from 2021 through 2024, according to the report.
Now they are planning luxury condos, rental towers and sprawling mixed-use projects while bringing financing from Wall Street with them.
Among the New York developers expanding into Fort Lauderdale are Dependable Equities co-founders Isaac Schlesinger and Simon Dushinsky, whose home borough is Brooklyn.
The pair previously developed luxury condos across several Brooklyn neighborhoods and are now pursuing three developments in Fort Lauderdale.
Their first, Ombelle, is a two-tower, 754-unit project expected to be completed around 2028.
One of the towers is already 45% presold, Schlesinger told Bloomberg.
The project is slated to house Fort Lauderdale’s first Equinox gym.
Developers are counting on Fort Lauderdale attracting buyers seeking a less expensive and less hectic alternative to Miami.
The median sale price of a Fort Lauderdale home is about $70,000 less than Miami, according to Redfin data cited by Bloomberg. A year ago, the gap was roughly $120,000.
“For some people, Miami became too hectic, too busy, too noisy,” Miki Naftali, whose New York-based firm is developing more than 250 condos and a rental building in Fort Lauderdale’s Flagler Village, told Bloomberg.
“So Fort Lauderdale is a fantastic city for those that just want one notch down.”
Naftali predicted the city is still in the early stages of its transformation.
“In five to 10 years,” he said, “you will see a lot of price appreciation, because we are just at the beginning of the story.”
Situated roughly midway between Miami and Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale offers developers a comparatively less expensive way to capitalize on South Florida’s growing population and influx of wealth.
New York remains the leading source of interstate newcomers to the downtown area, according to the local development group cited by Bloomberg.
The migration has been substantial. More than 125,000 New Yorkers relocated to Florida between 2018 and 2022, taking nearly $14 billion in adjusted gross income with them, according to a Citizens Budget Commission analysis.
About 41,250 of those transplants settled in the South Florida counties of Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Broward, which includes Fort Lauderdale.
Meanwhile, the number of adults under 45 living downtown has surged 25% since 2020.
Improving transportation links are also adding to the city’s appeal.
Brightline trains can reach downtown Miami from Fort Lauderdale in about 40 minutes, while airlines have increased service at the local airport following Spirit Airlines’ shutdown.
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