Gevorg Shahbazyan of Starlife Group: 5 Questions

Gevorg Shahbazyan, founder and CEO of Miami-based Starlife Group, is developing 21 Hollywood, a 14-story, 200-unit luxury apartment project at 2100 North Federal Highway in Hollywood, Fla.

The building, designed by Kobi Karp, is under construction just north of downtown. Before he became a developer, Shahbazyan moved to the U.S. from Armenia as a teenager. He learned enough English to earn a master’s in global affairs at Florida International University, and then to start Starlife Group.

The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Commercial Observer: The multifamily project in Hollywood is your biggest undertaking so far.

Gevorg Shahbazyan: We have a world-class team working on it. We wanted to create a luxury product. We have every type of amenity you could think of – cold plunges, saunas, anything an Olympic athlete would want. 

People want the service, the lifestyle, entertainment, to be able to live and work in one place. Our motto is that we don’t want to do anything that’s less than top quality. We want to create our name in the industry. We want to show the whole world what kind of developments we do. 

You know, I might live in this building as well. You can work, live, study, and do business in this building. You’re close to downtown, three, four minutes from the beach. We just wanted to make a lifestyle building that people can enjoy and they don’t need to leave the building. 

We will also have 21 Hollywood shuttles. Let’s say you are in your penthouse unit, you’re having your cup of coffee, and you decide you want to go to the beach. So you take your phone, you just reserve the shuttle.

How does the live-work concept play out?

We’re going to have coworking spaces, and one main conference room that people can use. We will have a social media room for podcasts and videos. We’re going to have two movie theaters. One of the indoor movie theaters can also operate like a presentation place, if you want to do like your business presentations. So we have outdoor and indoor movie theaters as well. So, I mean, you have everything in this building.

What are the price points and floor plans at Hollywood 21?

We are trying to stay around $4 per square foot at the time when we open the doors, which will be at the end of 2026, early 2027. I think $4 per square foot is a reasonable number. 

A lot of new construction luxury buildings downtown charge almost $5 per square foot — $4.90, $4.80, $4.50 today. Plus they charge a lifestyle fee of like $300. We are planning to be around $4. 

The smallest unit we have is 530 square feet. The largest we have is a bit shy of 1,300 square feet. So if you take a studio, it might cost around $2,120, and a two-bedroom might be $2,800 to $3,200.

There’s been a lot of talk about the apartment building boom in South Florida, and a population influx that has slowed a bit. Are either of those things going to be headwinds for you?

I cannot predict anything, and I don’t think anybody can predict anything, but what we can see are the trends. 

What we have seen is the rising population in Florida. We have seen the demand rising. We have seen that prices are rising. We have seen that the cost of living is rising, but we have also seen that a lot of people are tired of New York, Chicago, California, and they all want to move to South Florida. 

We have seen that a lot of businesses are moving here. A lot of Europeans also move to Florida. I know there is a bit of a slowdown, but I think if you look at the next five, 10, 15 years, Florida has not reached its peak yet. We have the best weather, we have the best restaurants, we have the best shopping centers. We have a dynamic economy. 

What’s your biggest challenge?

My age. I’m only 31, and a lot of people doubted me as a developer and as a visionary in the industry. But it also gave me a lot of opportunities to prove myself. Everyone in their heart has a passion for something; you just have to find it. My parents or grandparents were not builders or developers. I started in this business when I was 21. I wanted to learn how everything worked. There is no book that can prepare you. I wanted to understand the system, to learn. Every time I was driving by construction sites, I’d just go and introduce myself and ask them, “Hey, can you give me a hard hat? Can I just walk around and just look?”

It was not easy to learn, especially in an unforgiving place like Miami, where if you make one mistake you’re out. The best bet is to start with the small projects and make the mistakes on the smaller projects than the larger ones. Because, for example, if you make one mistake on a single-story building, that’s the mistake. But if you are making a mistake on one floor of a 20- or 40-story building, that mistake goes 40 floors, then you’re essentially out, right?

Jeff Ostrowski can be reached @jostrowski@commercialobserver.com.