The Satori, slated for downtown Fort Lauderdale

Joel Altman
Chairman, Altman Cos.
Boca Raton

Ask developer Joel Altman what’s driving urban redevelopment lately, and he’ll tell you: Good business sense. Creating the infrastructure to keep up with sprawl is getting more expensive, so developers are looking to build residential construction around existing infrastructure closer to city centers. That’s the key as well, he says, to successful affordable housing.

Altman Cos. developed the mixed-use Symphony in downtown Fort Lauderdale with the Abdo Cos.

Altman, whose portfolio stretches from the Midwest to the Southeast, with the largest segment in Florida, is developing the 279-unit urban complex Satori in Fort Lauderdale. The project, scheduled for completion in a year, is a component of the city’s gentrification. Rents start at $1,500. Another project, The Astor, is playing a significant role in the revitalization of downtown Delray Beach, filling the need for more housing and business in the area. Already sold out, it consists of two midrise buildings totaling 90 units, with a retail component on the ground level. The condos are expected to be finished by the spring.

The Astor, under construction in downtown Delray Beach

Sold on Tampa and Orlando

Anthony M. Everett
President, Everett Realty & Investments
Tampa

In the late ’90s and early 2000, as the suburbs were booming, then-Orlando
Mayor Glenda Hood looked at her downtown’s eroding tax base and decided to pump millions of dollars into redevelopment, says Anthony M. Everett, president of Everett Realty & Investments. Today, the city’s downtown is a residential top pick of Baby Boomers and Generation Xers.

Everett represents Post Properties, which recently acquired 350 units at Post Lake in Orlando’s Baldwin Park.

It is also a top pick of Post Properties, which Everett represents. Known for its high-quality rental apartment complexes, Atlanta-based Post recently acquired 350 units in Baldwin Park, close to downtown Orlando. It’s planning to build an additional 410 units nearby.

Post also likes Tampa. It has 500 units planned in the Tampa market, including 192 near downtown. One project, Post SoHo Square, available in March 2009, will be close to the city’s business district in the trendy SoHo district.

Everett says units will be ready when the housing market starts to improve.

Design Statement

John Fullerton
Founding partner, Fullerton Diaz Architects
Coral Gables

The resurgence in downtowns is long overdue, says Coral Gables architect John Fullerton. The market is strong for well-designed, iconic buildings that say something about the city as well as the people who want to live there, he says. Residential buildings cropping up in Miami’s urban core are more interesting from a design standpoint than in the ’60s and ’70s, he says.

Fullerton’s Capital at Brickell

Fullerton’s Bristol Tower on Brickell Avenue, built in the early ’90s and one of the first apartment buildings to go up after a nearly 20-year new-construction hiatus, is credited with beginning a new age of design in Miami.

Fullerton says mixed-use is a crucial component to downtown resurgence. Retail helps animate the street; 24-hour activity draws people back to the city core to live.