Laurent Morali and Nicole Kushner Meyer

Kushner Companies has continued to seek new opportunities and lay the groundwork for major developments in South Florida over the last years, fueling that pipeline with major financing deals.

When it comes to South Florida, the firm led by Laurent Morali and Nicole Kushner Meyer sees plenty of opportunity to develop. The family firm has been active in the Miami area since before COVID, a presence that started growing slowly at first as Kushner’s leadership wasn’t finding existing properties that matched their criteria.

Luckily, there was no lack of local firms to offer a new perspective on South Florida housing.

“For a while, we were looking at development because we couldn’t make sense of any of the cash-flowing assets that we were looking at,” Meyer said. “Previously, [in South Florida] a lot of people had condo development expertise, but not as much multifamily expertise. So we’ve been getting a lot of opportunities on the multifamily front where we can be an integrated partner to a bunch of people.”

Since then, they’ve built 2000 Biscayne, a 36-story, 420-unit apartment building in Miami that wrapped construction in 2024 and that saw the construction financing shored up over the summer when it was 75 percent leased. Kushner built it with PTM Partners.

As for that construction financing, it closed in June — an $87.3 million, eight-year loan from Corebridge Financial with permanent, fixed-rate financing.

Soon the firm will wrap construction at 9300 Collins Avenue in Surfside on a 68-unit luxury rental project which broke ground in June and offers an alternative to the condominium-rich community. The building will be complete by the end of 2026 with amenities such as a kids play rooms, a theater, a library, a spa, a fitness center and a yoga studio. (Disclosure: Meyer is married to Joseph Meyer, chairman of Commercial Observer owner Observer Media.)