Laurent Morali and Nicole Meyer

Between its Wynwood apartment complex delivered last year, and a nearly complete Edgewater high-rise, Kushner Companies has put just under 700 units on the South Florida market in under a year. 

The Wynd 27 and Wynd 28 complexes were delivered in June with 264 units combined, and renters are expected to move into the 420-unit 2000 Biscayne in April of this year. 

Which frees up CEO Laurent Morali and President Nicole Kushner Meyer to focus on their next big project: an 87-unit luxury rental in Surfside. The deal came together — from the first broker’s call in August to final rezoning approval in January — in around five months. Kushner Companies paid $40 million for the 2.9-acre site at the border of Surfside and Bal Harbour, and the existing lender, Fuse Group, agreed to provide $30 million in new acquisition financing. “We closed in less than two weeks on the purchase of the site,” said Morali. 

The firm decided to go with luxury rentals because the market is already saturated with condos. “It feels like a condo but it’s a rental product,” said Meyer. “We’re creating a rental option for people that doesn’t exist today.” (Disclosure: Meyer is married to Joseph Meyer, chairman of Commercial Observer owner Observer Media.) 

Kushner intends to have shovels in the ground by the second half of the year, and is not concerned about finding financing, given the company’s track record and industry relationships. 

Also on the agenda is a multifamily project in Fort Lauderdale. In 2022, Kushner paid $49 million for three sites along West Broward Boulevard, near the city’s Brightline station, together with Aimco. It later chose to sell two of the sites in order to focus on the third one. “We’re left with 300 West Broward, [and] we now own it with no debt,” said Morali. 

In the second sale, Harvey Hernandez’s Newgard Development Group, which is building a short-term rental tower in Miami, purchased the site next door at 200 West Broward for $31 million. Newgard’s product will complement Kushner’s rental, rather than compete with it, said Meyer, while allowing them to build simultaneously, which will help revitalize the area faster. 

Kushner Companies’ growth in South Florida is largely due to its team, Morali said, with special shoutouts to Raphael Schwartz and Gabriela Toledo, who lead Florida development, and Mike Szafranski, who sources deals.