David Martin
CEO at Terra
David Martin’s Terra is behind some of South Florida’s most buzzed-about residential projects, and is only adding to its already expansive real estate portfolio.
The developer behind Five Park and Mr. C Residences, Terra has a plethora of new residential properties that includes the Well Bay Harbor Islands (66 condos slated for completion in 2025); Villa Miami (66 condos in Miami’s Edgewater district slated for completion in 2027); Mr. C Hotel & Residences West Palm Beach (146 condos in West Palm Beach, plus 110 hotel rooms); and Upland Park Phase 1 (578 market-rate apartments in western Miami-Dade County, slated for delivery in 2026, part of a multi-phase, 47-acre mixed-use project).
Just a month ago, Terra closed on a $285 million construction loan for Mr. C Hotel & Residences in West Palm Beach with lender Tyko Capital. The development will feature 146 luxury residences and 110 hotel rooms.
“I think the amount of activity in West Palm Beach right now is great,” Martin said. “I think that the leadership in West Palm Beach is doing an amazing job thinking out of the box and innovatively [to further West Palm Beach’s development], and I think the business community is very much aligned. To be able to create a lifestyle hotel and a residential project that’s going to be very special in West Palm Beach is phenomenal.”
Martin also has cooking Well Coconut Grove (194 condos in Miami’s Coconut Grove), Jean-Georges Miami Tropic Residences (329 condos in the city’s Midtown/Design District) and many others in Miami Beach, Key Biscayne and Boca Raton. Phew!
“We’re still seeing very robust tenant demand in our multifamily portfolio,” Martin said. “We’re still growing rents. We typically are targeting neighborhoods that have high barriers to entry, restrictive zoning, and then we build a product that doesn’t exist there.
“South Florida is going to continue to have restricted supply,” he added, “which should allow for a very robust pipeline going forward, and I also think there’s ongoing flight-to-quality in the residential space where people want new instead of old. The newer residential buildings have certain amenitization, certain construction quality, certain sustainability, and certain programming that is only going to enhance people’s lives — and I think that is what people are looking for today.”
