One Ocean South Beach
Located at 1 Ocean Drive, Miami Beach, FL 33139

Seeking to cement his “legacy” in Miami Beach, developer Jorge Perez has recruited Enrique Norten of Mexico’s TEN Arquitectos and landscape architect Enzo Enea, creator of Switzerland’s Tree Museum, to collaborate on the design of the ultra-luxury One Ocean condo project.

“Enea, known for creating the world’s only Tree Museum in Switzerland, works with Norten to envision a gorgeous mixture of living spaces, nature and art,” according to The Related Group statement announcing the project.

Perez also plans to incorporate into the property the artistic work of modern Latin American artists such as Jose Bedia, Eugenio Cuttica, Michelle Oka Doner and Daniel Azouley.

“We have built over 80,000 units thus far. One Ocean is my legacy for Miami Beach,” Perez, the chairman and CEO of The Related Group, said in a statement.

Perez’s connection to art is well known: not only is he a collector of the work of modern Latin American artists, but he has given a donation to the Miami Art Museum of art and cash totaling $40 million. As a result, the new museum, now under construction, is going to be called the Jorge M. Perez Art Museum of Miami-Dade County.

In addition to 46 residences, the project will have four villas. Typical residences will have about 3,000 square feet of space, and would include private elevators, underground parking, beach club membership, a gym and a pool, according to a statement from the company. Some residences will also feature rooftop spas and solariums designed by Enea, as well as front and back terraces.
Enea will apply his aesthetic to a range of areas from the private gardens, to the park and common areas at the 1 Collins Ave.

“Our vision was to design outdoor spaces that create a consistent language among the unique architectural elements of One Ocean,” Enea said. “This language is used throughout the entire site, providing lush private gardens, luxurious pool top cabanas, and elegant rooftop terraces with Miami’s aqua blue waters as their backdrop.”

Perez has told the Business Journal that every project is an opportunity to incorporate art into his work through design, architecture and the installation of art pieces on site. He provided his Top Ten South Florida project, in his own words, to the Business Journal.

One Ocean is part of a big push by The Related Group to grow its condo development division as part of an overall plan to diversify the company.

Related has several other condo projects either under construction including Millecento in the Brickell area of downtown Miami. Perez’s previous projects near One Ocean include Apogee Miami Beach and Murano at Portofino. Sales for One Ocean are handled by Related Realty and Fortune International. The sales center, located at 91 Collins Ave., is set to open in time for Miami Art Week and Art Basel.

By Oscar Pedro Musibay
South Florida Business Journal

Click here for more information about this amazing project.

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BY ELAINE WALKER
EWALKER@MIAMIHERALD.COM

Even without casino gambling, Genting Group said Tuesday it is moving ahead with a dramatically scaled down mixed-use plan for Resorts World Miami.

The five acres where The Miami Herald currently sits would become the site for a five-star luxury hotel, luxury condominiums, waterfront restaurants, some limited retail and an 800-foot long promenade along Biscayne Bay.

It’s still too early to tell exactly what it would look like because the project is being designed by Miami’s Arquitectonica. There are no renderings available, no specifics about the size of any of the elements or any idea what would happen to the rest of the 13.9 acres on the Herald site.

“With more and more people traveling to downtown Miami and a growing number of residents calling the area home, we are going to seize the opportunity to convert this prime piece of bayfront land into the centerpiece of a thriving neighborhood.” Bernardo Fort-Brescia, co-founder and principal of Miami-based Arquitectonica, said in a statement released by Resorts World Miami.

Early indications are that this version of Resorts World Miami will be a far cry from the original $3.8 billion project with 5,200 hotel rooms, the world’s largest casino, more than 50 restaurants and bars and a retail shopping mall. That plan drew the ire of many community leaders for the being out of scale with the neighborhood surrounding the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts and having the potential to create a traffic nightmare.

“It sounds more modest and more reasonable; somebody is listening,” said Jack Lowell, a Miami commercial broker who was a Genting advocate in the business community. “I think it is also reflective of the current market and seems to make some sense.”

The first inkling of Genting’s latest plan comes about six weeks after the Florida Legislature shut down efforts to approve destination resorts in South Florida. A proposal can be revived next year.

Miami City Commissioner Marc Sarnoff, whose district includes the site, said he has been told renderings will be available in 30 to 60 days. During meetings with Genting, Sarnoff was told the project would include a pedestal with two or three towers on top. But the design would not include the futuristic look of the original project with irregular shapes designed to resemble a coral reef.

“I’m expecting to see a lot of rectangles with some architectural nuance to it,” Sarnoff said. “You could build the fish with casino gambling, because gambling allows you to do anything. It covers up all your mistakes. I like to see people build efficient buildings. These buildings will work across the board. They’re coming back with a footprint that is more germane for the way things get built in Miami.”

The new vision is also good news to Arsht Center leaders, who had been among the biggest critics of the original Genting plan because of the potential impact it would have on their facility.

“I think the Arsht Center and the neighborhood would benefit from that kind of development,” said Armando Codina, chairman of the Town Square Neighborhood Development Corp, the nonprofit created to protect the interests of the Arsht Center and the surrounding area. “It would be a very welcome addition. I just hope that the addition to the tax base will be used by the CRA to meaningfully improve the rest of the neighborhood.”

This time around Genting seems to be taking a go-slow approach. The company has been quietly discussing its new plans with select city leaders and distributing only a three-paragraph press release with limited specifics.

Last time around, Genting unveiled its ambitious proposal with a slick video and cocktail party for community leaders at the Four Seasons Hotel.

The new proposal would take up only a fraction of Genting’s 30 acres in the Omni neighborhood. Since purchasing the Herald land last May, Genting has invested about $500 million in real estate, including the Omni Center and other parcels. Genting is expected to continue operating the existing hotel at the Omni Center and leasing the remainder of the vacant office space on the site.

Genting Chairman K.T. Lim had always said that if gambling didn’t get approved, development of the Herald site could take up to 20 years.

“They said from Day One they would bring a project to market that meets market demand, and that’s what they’re doing,” said Tadd Schwartz, Genting’s South Florida spokesman. “They want to let the public know they are committed to Miami. This project will be within the scale of what currently exists in downtown Miami’s luxury hotel and condo market.”

The Herald, which has an agreement to remain on the property rent free for two years, is scheduled to move to a Doral site by May 2013.

Genting’s development plans, as they exist now, call for demolishing the Herald building and removing what has for decades been a barrier to public access of the waterfront. The idea is to create a gathering place where people can stroll or dine overlooking Biscayne Bay. Plans call for a waterfront promenade 50 feet wide that spans 800 feet. The design will also maintain 100-foot corridors on either side of the development with landscaped green space to allow a view of Biscayne Bay.

“The new design for Resorts World Miami will bring to life one of Miami’s most underutilized pieces of waterfront land after decades of inactivity,” Fort-Brescia said.

The Genting project also seeks to capitalize on what is quickly becoming a limited supply of luxury condominiums downtown. A recent study by the Downtown Development Authority found 93 percent of the nearly 23,000 condominiums built after 2002 are occupied. Of that, only about a third are occupied full-time by owners, with the majority serving as rental apartments.

“If we’re going to keep up with our growth, we have to get some projects in place,” said Alicia Cervera Lamadrid, managing partner of Cervera Real Estate. “There are not that many sites left. I don’t think there’s anything else being planned directly on the waterfront.”

Read more at Miami Herald

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Developers are erecting super-skyscrapers for the very wealthy, selling apartments with helicopter views for massive price tags. Why everyone’s looking up; plus, the realities of life on the 90th floor.

Luxury real estate is reaching new heights.

Living the High Life: Developers are betting big on residential skyscrapers, building them at record-breaking heights—with record price tags to match. Changing the skyline in New York, London and Dallas, the tallest new residences will stretch over 90 stories, with at least one penthouse asking over $100 million.

In New York, the current chart topper at 870 feet is New York by Gehry at 8 Spruce Street, a rental building in the Financial District that was designed by Frank Gehry. The 76-story building’s first residents moved in last year, but coming soon is a building with residences even higher up. Under construction in Midtown is One57, a condo building with a hotel that will have apartments as high as 90 floors up, or just over 1,000 feet.

“From here you have all the icons of New York,” said Dan Tubb, One57′s director of sales, looking at a wall-size screen that shows a simulated view of the upper floors’ helicopter-like vistas. But One57′s moment at the top may also be brief: Plans are in place for a nearly 1,400-foot-tall condo and retail complex on the site of the former Drake Hotel on Park Avenue and 56th Street, according to people familiar with the project.

Historically, many of the world’s tallest buildings, like the Empire State Building and Chicago’s Willis Tower, were built to house offices, at a time when people weren’t accustomed to living in high rises, and later when many city dwellers were heading to the suburbs. Very-tall residential high rises began growing in popularity 10 to 15 years ago, says Timothy Johnson, chairman of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. Middle-class and upper-class residents began moving back into cities’ urban cores and developers looked for ways to maximize their returns on prime real estate that was growing increasingly scarce and costly. The phenomenon took a brief pause after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, when some buyers were put off by the idea of living in a building that stood out in a city’s skyline.

But demand for living on the highest floors returned within six months of the attacks, says Jonathan Miller, president of appraisal firm Miller Samuel, and during the building boom that followed, dozens of new high-rise condominiums rose in cities around the country. The subsequent downturn and credit crisis resulted in many empty buildings and halted construction. Prices have more recently stabilized, particularly on the high end, and an influx of foreign buyers has absorbed empty inventory in many cities.

Now, building tall is taking off again, with an increasing number of skyscrapers including residences. In 2012, it’s projected that 41 of the world’s tallest 100 buildings will be office spaces; in 2000, it was 85. This time, with financing for new projects still tight, many developers are focusing strictly on the high end, where demand is strongest and profit margins are biggest. “Land costs in places like New York have gone so astronomically high,” says developer Donald Trump. “It becomes very beneficial to go up.”

When it opens later this year at 42 stories, Dallas’s Museum Tower will be the city’s second tallest residential building—the tallest to rise in the city in more than 20 years. With 57 stories, the upcoming Porsche Design Tower Miami could be the tallest residential building in Sunny Isles, Fla., just north of Miami, when it opens in 2016. (Another nearby project, the Mansions at Acqualina, is slated to be similar in height.) Condos at Porsche Tower, priced between $4 million and $20 million, will have elevators to carry residents up to adjacent garages in their cars, as well as glass-walled car showrooms next to living rooms. In Brooklyn, known for its low-slung brownstones and mid-rise apartment buildings, two new projects are currently vying for the title of the borough’s tallest, one at 596 feet and the other roughly four feet higher; both will be high-end residential buildings.

A number of record-breaking sales over the past year have buoyed belief that the appetite for trophy properties is growing. In February, a penthouse on Central Park West sold for $88 million. At One57, the 89th and 90th floor duplex penthouse recently sold for $90 million to an unnamed buyer; another large unit on the 78th and 79th floors, known as the Winter Garden, is in contract for an undisclosed sum. It is asking $115 million. Earlier this summer, a South Beach penthouse sold for $25 million, a record for an apartment there. A 76th story penthouse at New York by Gehry hit the rental market a few weeks ago with an asking price of $60,000 per month.

Many of the newest residential skyscrapers are marketing overseas, aiming to attract wealthy foreign buyers looking to live the high life. At least 10 units in One57 have gone into contract with Chinese buyers. For foreign buyers, buying into a newly constructed building in New York is easier than getting approval from cooperative or condominium boards, says Edward Mermelstein, a Manhattan-based lawyer who advises wealthy Russian and Eastern European clients purchasing real estate in the U.S. “There’s another level of anonymity,” he says.

At Trump International Hotel & Tower Toronto, which became the one of the tallest residential building in Canada when it was completed earlier this year, roughly 60% of buyers have been from outside the country, says Howard Tikka, the building’s director of marketing.

The race to the top is happening in cities around the world. Soon to open in Tel Aviv is Meier-on-Rothschild, a 37-story building that will become the city’s tallest residence, designed by architect Richard Meier. Martin Franklin, the founder and CEO of Jarden Corp., parent company of brands including Crock-Pot and Sunbeam, says he decided to buy an apartment on the 30th floor there, partly because he liked the design and because “views in tall buildings are very important.” One of the building’s penthouses is still on the market for $50 million.

A two-story apartment in the Shard, London’s tallest building that’s expected to be mostly completed later this year, could hit the market for an estimated £50 million, or about $80 million. (The building, which has 10 residences, also has offices and a hotel.) Princess Tower in Dubai recently became the world’s tallest residential building with 763 apartments going up 107 stories, or 1,358 feet, according to the Council on Tall Buildings.

Living at 1,000 feet does have drawbacks. Outdoor terraces are generally impossible above 40 or 50 stories, because of the wind. Though most of the new buildings have walls of mostly glass to capture the views, the windows only partially open at the highest floors. Experts say that while asking prices go up with every floor, views improve only marginally above a certain height, depending on how tall the surrounding buildings are. “People are paying for the status and the exclusivity of living on that next higher floor,” says Nancy Packes, a New York-based residential development consultant and marketer who has worked with many skyscraper developers. “There’s a psychological component to living on high floors in a building. Even though views don’t change materially.”

Michael Berman, who owns car dealerships in Chicago, moved from the suburbs to a four-bedroom condominium on the 57th floor of Chicago’s 92-story Trump International Hotel and Tower in 2009. Though he was one of the building’s first buyers, he wasn’t interested in living on one of the very top floors, noting that 30 years ago he and his wife lived in a different high rise and often lost the views on a cloudy day.

The one downside Mr. Berman noticed about living in Trump Towers, which houses the highest residences in the U.S., is that opening the windows means letting in a swift breeze, and on the windiest days, the usually ultrafast elevators slow down somewhat. “But everything else more than makes up for it,” he says, noting the building’s five-star restaurant below and optional hotel maid service.

Thomas Guss, a New York real-estate broker who currently has a $39 million penthouse listed in a 19-story building, the Centurion, says he typically warns buyers that the taller the building, the more it naturally sways toward the top. “Not many people think about that until the first storm comes.” Mr. Guss says a 45th-story rental unit he owns in the Financial District has views of the Statue of Liberty—but waves appear in the bathtub during thunderstorms. “A lot of people are very uncomfortable with that,” he adds.

Bart Sullivan, a senior vice president at WSP Cantor Seinuk, a firm that handles engineering for buildings like One World Trade Center, says building a residential skyscraper is generally more challenging than building a tall office building, partly because residential buildings have fewer internal columns and other core structural elements. Residences also have more stringent rules governing comfort for people inside. For example, an 80- or 90-story building can sway between several inches on a typical day, and over a foot during a major windstorm. To mitigate the feeling of motion, tall buildings sometimes include dampers at the top. Made either of steel or tanks of water, a damper is essentially a large mass sitting on a pendulum that sways in the opposite direction.

Furthering the challenges is the trend toward increasingly narrow skyscrapers. New York’s 432 Park Avenue, potentially the city’s tallest residential building when completed in 2016, may also be one of the city’s skinniest, with a width-to-height ratio that could require more complicated dampening techniques. To make sure there are no surprises post-construction, models of tall buildings and those surrounding it are sometimes tested inside mathematically accurate wind tunnels, meant to replicate conditions in the real world. In some cases, builders and engineers also take into consideration pedestrian comfort, to make sure people walking on the street 90 stories below won’t be blown back during windy conditions.

Many of the upcoming high rises include backup generators to keep elevators running in case of a blackout. Elevators have also improved. At One57, it takes about 30 seconds to be taken from the lobby to the 90th floor.

Developers have also dedicated unusually large amounts of the building’s square footage to common amenity areas. At One57, which will sit on top of a 25-story Park Hyatt hotel, plans call for three floors of facilities, including one private to residents with a fitness center and a library with a 24-foot-long aquarium. New York by Gehry has a sprawling lounge aimed at tweens, golf simulators, pool with an outdoor sun deck and a Frank Gehry-designed screening room. The other new high rise going up in Sunny Isles, Fla., the Mansions at Acqualina, will have a Turkish hammam spa, breakfast bar and poolside attendants ready to fetch juice or cocktails.

The apartments themselves are also unusually large, some with square footage meant to rival stand-alone estates. The Mansions at Acqualina has apartments that range in size from 4,600 square feet to over 15,000 square feet, with prices starting at $5.9 million. The nearby Porsche Tower will have two 15,000-square-foot penthouses, each with outdoor swimming pools and outdoor kitchens on sprawling terraces.

Still, it’s difficult to anticipate every consequence of building up. Dallas’s Museum Tower recently came under criticism when a neighboring building, the Nasher Sculpture Center, complained that the building’s glass facade cast a glare harsh enough to ruin some of its artwork and plants. “We are sad we have an issue with that, without a doubt,” says Greg Greene, the co-developer. A local civic leader has been enlisted to mediate between the two parties to come up with a solution. Developers from Museum Tower say one response they’ve come up with is to pay to recalibrate 200,000 rooftop cones on the art gallery, which point at their building, absorbing sunlight. In a statement, a spokesperson for the Nasher said “we believe a system of louvers or external shading for Museum Tower offers the most promise.”

In the end, views remain the big selling point. Kenneth Allen lives above the 70th floor in Chicago’s Trump Towers. He and his wife moved there from the suburbs after their kids left for college to be closer to the theater, Chicago Symphony and top restaurants.

“I can see Michigan, Indiana and Wisconsin,” he says. He watches storms roll in over Lake Michigan. “It’s like National Geographic.”

Corrections & Amplifications
An earlier version of this article erroneously said that two 15,000-square-foot penthouses at the Porsche Tower will have indoor swimming pools. The pools will be outdoor. Also, the earlier version incorrectly said the Trump Toronto is the tallest building in Canada.

Living the High Life
by CANDACE JACKSON
WSJ.com

Featured pictures Regalia, Porsche Design Tower, Mansions at Acqualina.

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Icon Bay is the latest pre-construction project from Related Group, after the great success of Icon Brickell, My Brickell and Millicento, Icon Bay continues the tradition of great projects, well located transforming the city skylight.

Now accepting reservations, this is the first stage of sales at Icon Bay where investors can take advantage of the best prices and units. Featuring Tennis courts, infinity edge swimming pool, Views to the bay from every unit, gourmet kitchen with top of the line appliances and a park.

Unit sizes from 900 – 1500 SF (90 – 150 M2), from 1 Bedroom + Den to 3 Bedrooms + 2.5 Baths.
Prices start at $455,000.

For more information click here to visit Icon Bay’s website.

Source: Related ISG
According to Related Group,
Related ISG’s Miami Report has just been released. Miami Report an in depth analysis of South Florida’s new developer condominium inventory.

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Remember when you used to have a period at the beginning of every day to think about your schedule, catch up with friends, maybe knock out a few tasks? It was called home room, and it went away after high school. But many successful people schedule themselves a kind of grown-up home room every day. You should too.

The first hour of the workday goes a bit differently for Craig Newmark of Craigslist, David Karp of Tumblr, motivational speaker Tony Robbins, career writer (and Fast Company blogger) Brian Tracy, and others, and they’ll tell you it makes a big difference. Here are the first items on their daily to-do list.

Don’t Check Your Email for the First Hour. Seriously. Stop That.

Tumblr founder David Karp will “try hard” not to check his email until 9:30 or 10 a.m., according to an Inc. profile of him. “Reading e-mails at home never feels good or productive,” Karp said. “If something urgently needs my attention, someone will call or text me.”

Not all of us can roll into the office whenever our Vespa happens to get us there, but most of us with jobs that don’t require constant on-call awareness can trade e-mail for organization and single-focus work. It’s an idea that serves as the title of Julie Morgenstern’s work management book Never Check Email In The Morning, and it’s a fine strategy for leaving the office with the feeling that, even on the most over-booked days, you got at least one real thing done.

If you need to make sure the most important messages from select people come through instantly, AwayFind can monitor your inbox and get your attention when something notable arrives. Otherwise, it’s a gradual but rewarding process of training interruptors and coworkers not to expect instantaneous morning response to anything they send in your off-hours.

Gain Awareness, Be Grateful

One smart, simple question on curated Q & A site Quora asked “How do the most successful people start their day?”. The most popular response came from a devotee of Tony Robbins, the self-help guru who pitched the power of mindful first-hour rituals long before we all had little computers next to our beds.

Robbins suggests setting up an “Hour of Power,” “30 Minutes to Thrive,” or at least “Fifteen Minutes to Fulfillment.” Part of it involves light exercise, part of it involves motivational incantations, but the most accessible piece involves 10 minutes of thinking of everything you’re grateful for: in yourself, among your family and friends, in your career, and the like. After that, visualize “everything you want in your life as if you had it today.”

Robbins offers the “Hour of Power” segment of his Ultimate Edge series as a free audio stream (here’s the direct MP3 download). Blogger Mike McGrath also wrote a concise summary of the Hour of Power). You can be sure that at least some of the more driven people you’ve met in your career are working on Robbins’ plan.

Do the Big, Shoulder-Sagging Stuff First

Brian Tracy’s classic time-management book Eat That Frog gets its title from a Mark Twain saying that, if you eat a live frog first thing in the morning, you’ve got it behind you for the rest of the day, and nothing else looks so bad. Gina Trapani explained it well in a video for her Work Smart series). Combine that with the concept of getting one thing done before you wade into email, and you’ve got a day-to-day system in place. Here’s how to force yourself to stick to it:

Choose Your Frog

“Choose your frog, and write it down on a piece of paper that you’ll see when you arrive back at your desk in the morning, Tripani advises.”If you can, gather together the material you’ll need to get it done and have that out, too.”

One benefit to tackling that terrible, weighty thing you don’t want to do first thing in the morning is that you get some space from the other people involved in that thing–the people who often make the thing more complicated and frustrating. Without their literal or figurative eyes over your shoulder, the terrible thing often feels less complex, and you can get more done.

Ask Yourself If You’re Doing What You Want to Do

Feeling unfulfilled at work shouldn’t be something you realize months too late, or even years. Consider making an earnest attempt every morning at what the late Apple CEO Steve Jobs told a graduating class at Stanford to do:

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

“Customer Service” (or Your Own Equivalent)

Craigslist founder Craig Newmark answered the first hour question succinctly: “Customer service.” He went on to explain (or expand) that he also worked on current projects, services for military families and veterans, and protecting voting rights. But customer service is what Newmark does every single day at Craigslist, responding to user complaints and smiting scammers and spammers. He almost certainly has bigger fish he could pitch in on every day, but Newmark says customers service “anchors me to reality.”

Your own version of customer service might be keeping in touch with contacts from year-ago projects, checking in with coworkers you don’t regularly interact with, asking questions of mentors, and just generally handling the human side of work that quickly gets lost between task list items. But do your customer service on the regular, and you’ll have a more reliable roster of helpers when the time comes.

What do you with the first hour of your workday to increase productivity and reduce stress? Tell us about it in the comments below.

What Successful People Do With The First Hour Of Their Work Day
By Kevin Purdy
[Image: Flickr user Thomas Hawk]

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Shutterstock images

The words that people use every day determine whether they will achieve failure or success. There are 5 words that, in my observation, frequently show up in the conversation of losers, much more so than in that of winners. Here they are:

1. Luck

Although it’s true that unforeseen events can affect outcomes, it was not luck that made the difference. It was the events. Luck had nothing to do with it.

Believing in luck focuses your thoughts on an imaginary construct that neither you nor anybody else can change or affect.

What’s worse, luck is an excuse that explains away failure (“It was just bad luck”) and devalues your successes (“It was just good luck”).

2. Enemy

It’s true that you have competitors, and that sometimes, for you to win, they have to lose (and vice versa). Even so, there are no enemies in business.

Enemies are opponents in warfare, when people are killing one another. Business is about making things better, not killing people.

The moment you demonize competitors by calling them enemies, you close off your business options. Today’s competitors are often tomorrow’s partners.

3. Rejection

You can pathologize such events by thinking of them as rejection, or you can understand that what really happened was that the other person’s desires didn’t match yours.

Rather than using a word that automatically makes you miserable, concentrate on changing your approach or approaching somebody else.

4. Hate

I cringe every time I hear somebody use this word in casual conversation. At work, it’s usually something like: “I hate my boss” or “I hate my job.”

Hate is a sick word, and it creates sickness in your body. Every time you use that word, you might as well be sticking a cancer cell in your body. Seriously.

I’m not saying that you’ve got to be sweetness and lovey-dovey about everything, but why pollute your brain by actually hating anything or anybody?

5. But

I’m sure you know somebody who can’t say anything about any idea, plan, or activity without crutching the sentence with the word but.

It’s always something like “Hey, that’s a great idea, but…” or “I agree that we need to take action, but…” It’s discouraging, and it kills momentum.

There’s a substitute for but that actually creates momentum: the word and. Try it next time a but is about to emerge from your mouth.

5 common words that create failure
By Geoffrey James writes the “Sales Source” column on Inc.com, the world’s most-visited sales-oriented blog. His newly published book is Business to Business Selling: Power Words and Strategies From the World’s Top Sales Experts. @Sales_Source
Wouldn’t it be nice if people always said yes to your ideas? Well, sometimes people aren’t going to like your ideas, or even you personally, for that matter.

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The Omni Community Redevelopment Agency, a city board that assumed the debt, is working to secure private financing to pay off the loan, executive director Pieter Bockweg said Thursday. But if the CRA comes up short, the city will be on the hook.

“It could drive the city into bankruptcy,” Miami Commission Chairman Francis Suarez said.

The tunnel loan payment is but the latest crisis-du-jour for Miami, which is already trying to plug a budget hole, replace key finance managers, negotiate with restive federal securities regulators and placate nervous bond raters.

Some City Hall observers and former employees say it’s another sign Miami is hurtling toward a financial meltdown — and an urgent reminder of the days when Miami’s finances were so dire that Gov. Lawton Chiles appointed a state board to oversee the city’s budget.

“It’s a mess, and it’s only getting worse,’’ said former Assistant City Manager Frank Rollason. “The city is on the brink of a financial emergency.”

Mayor Tomás Regalado downplayed concerns Thursday, saying there was no chance Miami would face financial ruin.

“We will have a balanced budget, one way or another,” he said, noting that the city manager can use layoffs or furloughs as a last resort to balance the books.

For the tunnel loan, Regalado said he is confident the CRA can obtain financing, either through a bond issue or engaging a private equity firm.

“The city will not be on the hook for the payment,” he said.

Miami is already struggling to close a $40 million gap in its $485 million operating budget. So far, efforts to negotiate concessions from the four labor unions have been unsuccessful.

City Manager Johnny Martinez tried to declare “financial urgency,” a legal maneuver that would have allowed the City Commission to force employee concessions. But last week, a Miami-Dade circuit judge said the city commission — not the city manager — has the authority to invoke the law. The commission has not taken any action since.

If that weren’t enough, three key money managers resigned their posts. And on Wednesday, Moody’s Investors Service announced plans to review the city’s budget and its “long-term financial stability.” The private credit agency has already warned it may downgrade Miami’s credit rating because of a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission probe into city bond issues.

The city has limited options moving forward, mostly because last month, the commission voted to lower taxes. The new rate, $8.47 for every $1,000 of taxable assessed property value, has already been advertised to property owners as required by law.

Commissioner Michelle Spence-Jones wants to try to reverse that decision.

“If we have the opportunity to raise the [tax] rate, which we do, we should open it up for discussion instead of slashing salaries and making cuts that could hurt our employees,” Spence-Jones told The Miami Herald.

City Attorney Julie O. Bru said the commission could have raised the tax rate earlier this month, but the window outlined in state law has now closed.

Click here to read more about the Port of Miami Tunnel Project and how this project will enhance the city.

$45 million Port of Miami tunnel dig payment threatens Miami’s finances
BY KATHLEEN MCGRORY
Miami Herald

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Photograph by Daniel Acker/Bloomberg

Believe it or not, that’s a good thing.

So far this year, banks and other companies that issue credit cards have sold $21 billion in bonds backed by those accounts’ debt, Bloomberg News reported on Aug. 29—up from $4.8 billion in the same period the year prior. Broadly, it’s a bet that consumers have their finances in order and will continue to be able to pay their monthly bills on time.

Bonds thrive when there’s predictability, and the credit-card business has become more stable since the crisis. The number of accounts 30 days past due peaked in March 2009 and again in November 2009, and has been declining ever since. Spenders are reining in their charging habits. Card issuers have cut off their least creditworthy customers, and reforms such as the CARD Act have forced them to be more careful about the riskiness of new customers. While all of this has put a crimp in credit-card companies’ growth, it has made for fat, steady revenue streams. In 2012, that’s not a bad position to be in.

“You may have to go back to the 1980s to see credit losses and delinquencies as low as they are right now,” says Bob Napoli, an analyst with William Blair. “It’s a sign that consumers are much more concerned about having good credit today, and a sign that the credit-card companies have been very disciplined in their underwriting.” The result, Napoli says, is a credit-card market that’s “Goldilocks healthy.”

With Europe’s future a giant question mark, and Treasuries offering meager returns, buyers such as mutual funds view credit-card-backed bonds as an attractive investment. For credit-card companies, this creates an opportunity to lower their own borrowing costs. Yields on top-ranked, five-year credit-card securities are the lowest in five years relative to a common benchmark, according to the Bloomberg report.

Might credit-card companies perhaps be grateful for the 2009 CARD Act, which they fiercely lobbied against? “I think so,” says Scott Valentin, an analyst with FBR Capital Markets. “The key has been the discipline coming out of the CARD Act.” Issuers are being more honest about their upfront pricing, Valentin says, and are restricted from the old industry practice of revising rates at any time for any reason. As Bloomberg Businessweek’s Karen Weise reported in July, the legislation has instilled a “forced rationality” in credit-card companies.

The New York Fed, in a report published yesterday, offered more data about the country’s credit-card habits. The number of open credit-card accounts has fallen 23 percent from its 2008 peak, to 383 million. And balances on those accounts are 22 percent down from their peak in the same year, from $866 billion to $672 billion. (Delinquency rates for student loans and home equity lines of credit rose.) That’s part of a general decline in household debt, which fell 0.5 percent in the second quarter of this year, to $11.38 trillion.

Fans of plastic still have plenty to curse credit-card companies about. This $20 billion-and-growing bonds trend, though, is a rare signal of a saner industry.

Summers covers Wall Street and finance for Bloomberg Businessweek.
By Nick Summers

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Economists have focused primarily on the impact to overall gross domestic product (GDP), the financial markets, and businesses’ bottom lines. But what about housing? The fragile sector is just starting to experience a nascent recovery, providing what countless economists have called a “bright spot” in an otherwise weak economy. How could a looming cliff affect the sector that triggered the Great Recession in the first place?

“Most consumers aren’t paying attention to the fiscal cliff. If the [local] housing affordability condition is good and they can get a mortgage, they are in the market,” says Lawrence Yun, chief economist of the National Association of Realtors (NAR). “However if the cliff was to be realized come January 1st and we do go into a recession, job losses could hamper the housing recovery.”

And housing has arguably begun to recover (albeit unevenly, with some markets still suffering losses). On Wednesday, July pending home sales were at their highest level in more than two years, according to NAR, and inventory continues to contract. The association projects home prices will increase 10% cumulatively over the next two years. Tuesday’s S&P Case-Shiller home price index for June showed similarly hopeful signs: the 20-city composite index showed prices up 1.2% in the first year-over-year gain since September 2010. And Fannie Mae economists estimate that residential investment in 2012 will positively contribute to GDP for the first time since 2005.

Yet the CBO projects a fiscal cliff could cost the U.S. two million jobs next year and cause the unemployment rate to stay stubbornly stuck above 8% through 2014. Fewer jobs could translate into less demand for new homes, possibly even a new wave of foreclosure filings as newly unemployed workers struggle to make mortgage payments.

While Yun asserts that buyers of U.S. homes currently pay little attention to what’s coming (perhaps thanks in part to a trove of foreign buyers?), if Congress continues to stall on a deal, that mentality could shift in the final months of the year. If 2010’s Bush Tax cut debate was any indicator, mounting economic and financial uncertainty could cause Americans — particularly Americans with higher levels of discretionary income — to pull back on consumer spending, holding off on major purchases like homes. At least until a resolution is realized.

“While there are underlying forces pushing growth in housing, it’s not going to be robust until the public gets comfortable with the idea there is going to be a growing employment and income environment,” Doug Duncan, chief economist at Fannie Mae, told the Wall Street Journal recently.

“The stability of people’s jobs does impact their confidence to spend moving forward,” adds Mark Cole, executive vice president of CredAbility, an Atlanta, Ga.-based nonprofit that offers credit and housing counseling services. CredAbility’s Consumer Distress Index indicates that housing led households out of financial distress in the second quarter for the first time since 2008. Yet Cole says average American families have been cautious about taking on new debt (if they can even qualify), choosing rentals over home purchases, according to the organization’s data.

Indeed the one area of housing that could gain from mounting economic uncertainty is the already-booming rental market. “Renting is the cautious alternative and I think that trend will be exaggerated a little bit more if there is a fiscal cliff — or even if we come close to one,” says Barry Hersh, a professor at New York University’s Schack Institute of Real Estate. Rents are already expected to increase an average of 4% nationally this year and 4% in 2013, according to NAR.

(Hersh also notes that commercial real estate could suffer negative effects more quickly than residential, since retail and office space are directly tied to overall consumer spending and businesses’ bottom lines.)

New home building will be hit hard if a recession is realized, too. “It will reverse the small gains we have made in home building thus far,” says David Crowe, chief economist of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB). Small to mid-sized home builders have struggled to access credit, which is predominantly underwritten by the banks, and a recession could put a damper on what little lending is out there. New home starts remain about 50% down from the rate required in a healthy housing market. The lack of new supply is already causing an inventory crunch in some areas; a reversal could lead to larger inventory shortages in the coming years.

Despite the speculative doom and gloom, economists believe a fiscal cliff-spurred recession would not spark the kind of home price-hemorrhaging witnessed when the housing bubble burst five years ago. “Markets have already corrected from the bubble, and in some places, over-corrected,” asserts Yun. “Even if there is a fiscal cliff, I suspect Congress will rectify that situation within a few months so it will be a very short term negative before the problem gets resolved.” Here’s hoping the realtor’s right.

By Morgan Brennan, Forbes Staff
Forbes.com
Photograph by Sasha Weleber/Getty Images

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There’s been a major real estate boom in Miami Beach recently but what’s changing hands aren’t lofty penthouses on Collins Avenue but small to mid-size luxury hotels that are being bought, sold, managed and renovated. In just the last few months:

- We saw the arrival of the $85 million SLS South Beach Hotel on Collins Avenue
- The Royal Palm Hotel was sold for $130 million and is being rebranded as the James Hotel
- The Gansevoort hotel was sold and renamed The Perry and is being managed by Starwood
- Kimpton beat out Doubletree for the management of the Surfcomber Hotel which sits at a prime location at 17th and Collins Avenue
- The Delano hotel is for sale (although its owners still want to manage it after the sale)
- And David Edelstein, the developer and owner of the W South Beach, along with the SLS Group have reportedly just bought Collins Avenue neighbor the Raleigh hotel for $55 million

“The unprecedented sales, purchase and renovation upgrades of hotel properties all over Miami Beach are indicators of the strength and demand for the destination,” says Jeff Lehman, Chair, the Miami Beach Visitor and Convention Authority. “Miami Beach’s consistent placement in the top ten of varied Best Of lists, continued allure in a competitive vacation market, ongoing infrastructure updates, sophisticated cultural, gastronomic and social options and of course, our great weather entices business-savvy hotel operators who realize this city is the best place to invest in now and for the future.”

Renovation projects currently underway include the B Hotel (the former Continental) and the Saxony hotel which is getting a dramatic makeover courtesy of star architects, Rem Koolhaas and Lord Norman Foster, continuing the tradition of star architects bringing their talents to Miami Beach. The reconstruction of the historic beachfront Seville Hotel, is also underway, soon to be branded a Marriot Editions as envisioned by Ian Schrager, the celebrity hotelier who invigorated South Beach with his launch of the Delano hotel 15 years ago. A number of properties are also actively courting buyers – if the price is right.

Luxury properties have become particularly in demand on Miami Beach with hotels like the SLS South Beach (designed by celeb designer, Phillipe Starck), the Mondrian (designed by famed Dutch designer Marcel Wanders), the W, Standard and Setai opening their doors in recent years and other properties getting significant makeovers like the Betsy, Surfcomber (also managed by Kimpton hotels), Fontainebleau and coming up, the Loews. Major hoteliers see Miami Beach as a sure bet in a tough economy. “We encourage business growth and development on the Beach,” says Lehman, “but all the attributes of Miami Beach make it easy to see why everyone wants to be here.”

About Miami Beach

With an average year-round temperature of 75 degrees, Miami Beach has an unrivaled reputation for culinary offerings, nightlife, culture, fashion, and luxurious hotels. Also a popular destination among travelers, Miami Beach was recently ranked by Trip Advisor as number one on its Top Winter Sun Vacation Rental Getaway Destinations for 2011 list and was included on both the Top 25 Beaches in the World and Top 25 Destinations in the U.S. lists. Boasting seven miles of breathtaking beaches, Miami Beach is easily accessible from the Port of Miami and Miami International Airport. The City of Miami Beach has just been named one of the top cities worldwide for ‘walkability’ and is equally easy to navigate by bike or by boat. Home to unique museums, to the New World Symphony and Miami City Ballet, to over 17,000 luxury, boutique and resort hotel rooms, 12 public parks and to the Miami Beach Convention Center, Miami Beach is a destination for all seasons. Miami Beach is like no other place in the world!

Visit MiamiBeachGuest.com or MiamiBeachINCARD.com for more information.

Read more here.
Souce: Heraldonline.com
Picture: W South Beach – Starwood.

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