Chicago Developers Seek Partner for Luxury Rental Tower in Miami

A new rental tower will soon be popping up in Miami’s Brickell district. 

Focus and Group Fox are seeking a limited partner to take a 90 percent stake to the tune of $105 million in Brickell Starlite, a 517-unit luxury development at 128 Southwest Seventh Street, just west of the Metromover rail line and four blocks from the Brickell station. 

In the coming weeks, the joint venture will also source $190 million in construction debt. In all, the 38-story project is expected to cost $292 million. The Chicago-based joint venture plans to break ground in the second quarter of this year and deliver by 2028, after having purchased the 1-acre site for $28 million in 2022. 

The development will target high-earning young professionals, who are expected to descend on the district. This year, Oko Group and Cain International completed 830 Brickell, Miami’s trophy office building, which counts tech giant Microsoft, Santander Bank and law firm Sidley & Austin as tenants. 

Ken Griffin relocated the global headquarters of his financial firms, hedge fund Citadel and market maker Citadel Securities, from Chicago to Miami. The billionaire is now in the early stages of developing a headquarters tower along Brickell’s waterfront.

“Miami being a very rapidly growing luxury market, we wanted to make sure that we met the demands of everyone that is going to potentially live here, especially with all those influxes from New York and from Central America,” said Vicky Lee, senior vice president of development at Focus. “Our rents are much lower than what they would have to put out for a condo.”

In recent years, Brickell has become a hotbed of condo development with construction under way for towers branded in association with Cipriani, Ritz-Carlton and Baccarat, but luxury multifamily rental projects have lagged. 

While there are other multifamily developments in the pipeline, none is as close as Brickell Starlite to breaking ground, except for Joseph Chetrit’s project along the Miami River, according to Cushman & Wakefield’s Chris Lentz, who’s brokering the transactions. 

Julia Echikson can be reached at jechikson@commercialobserver.com.