Creating a Community for Urban Life

Talk about how Downtown Doral came into being.
Doral was an area in northwestern Miami-Dade County, named after the iconic Doral Golf Resort, which is nearby. There was a countywide incorporation movement in the 1990s and early 2000s, and in 2003, Doral incorporated. Soon after, we entered into a joint venture with the owners of the property, institutional investors advised by JPMorgan, and have been developing what we call Downtown Doral now for 10 years.

What was the vision for the project?
We saw that a number of areas that incorporated didn’t have a true downtown, a heart, so our vision was to create a community where people could enjoy all aspects of urban life—living, working, learning, and playing—in the same place.

Where did you begin?
Phasing was a major challenge because it’s an infill project. With a green-field project, you start with the front door then build out the infrastructure. We didn’t have that option. The property itself was an old office park, with 31 buildings and existing infrastructure. We tore down 24 buildings and will tear down two more by early next year because they were obsolete. But we couldn’t just terminate tenants: we had to wait for leases to expire or negotiate with tenants in order to get them to vacate. And, as we demolished buildings, we had to upgrade roads, which required redirecting existing tenants.

Then?
After we dealt with the first part of phasing, addressing the physical location, we had to deal with the second part, which is product type. You need some critical mass of retail, but it’s a chicken-and-egg problem. Do you get retailers first because people want to live where they have amenities? Or do you get the people to live there to draw the retailers? Balancing when to proceed with each product type has been a challenge.

Where does the development stand now?
Almost half of the 120 acres of land has been developed. We kept four office buildings, a total of 365,000 square feet, and they’re 95 percent leased. We built a 450-unit rental apartment community, Cordoba Rentals, and a 150,000-square-foot class A office building. We built a 60,000-square-foot city hall. And, we improved a three-acre park across the street from city hall. It features a massive $1 million public art sculpture designed by prominent artist Michele Oka Doner, which we donated.

What about ongoing construction?
There’s a 20-story, 203-unit condo tower called 5252 Paseo. There’s a 75-unit townhome complex; we’ve sold 60 of them, and the first closing will begin at the end of 2015. And, we’ve broken ground on the first phase of our retail project, which will have 80,000 square feet. We’ve already signed a few anchor tenants, including restaurants Bulla Gastropub, Suspiros Ceviche, and Dragonfly, plus a dry cleaner and a bank. It should be open by late 2015.

You’ve worked on this project for 10 years. Has it been meaningful to you to see it develop?
I love all my projects. I like that you create something and you leave something behind. You can physically touch what you’re working on. You can drive by and show it to people. But this is my favorite project to date. It has every aspect of development except industrial. Within Downtown Doral, I can’t say I have a favorite building because if you take any building and put it anywhere else, it wouldn’t be the same building as it is in Downtown Doral. All of the parts together make a community.