MIAMI’S OPERA TOWER: A HARBINGER FOR CONDO LITIGATION?
This article, in slightly different form, originally
appeared in the Daily Business Review, an
ALM publication.
The giant brochure for Opera Tower touts
some 56 stories rising above Biscayne Bay,
an Olympic-sized pool and condominiums
equipped with designer kitchens and other
luxury amenities.
In the background of the rendering of
the elliptical shaped building is the new
Carnival Center for the Performing Arts
and unobstructed views of the bay with
what looks like an attached marina.
Nowhere to be seen are two neighboring
high rises practically atop Opera Tower:
Bay Parc Plaza and the Grand.
“There are substantial buildings to the
north and south,” says Miami Beach attorney Kent Harrison Robbins, who has filed
nine federal lawsuits on behalf of residents
who want to get out of their contracts and
retrieve their deposits. “It’s misleading for
someone who does not know the neigh-
borhood or the surrounding development.”
Robbins said his clients are at a minimum looking to get their deposits back,
but if the cases go to court, they could
seek damages.
Tibor Hollo, the iconic South Florida
developer who built Opera Tower, dis-misses the litigants as “flippers” who can’t
take an investment loss. “It’s a great spot,
the views are incredible and people want
it,” he says. “This is really a symptomatic
kind of thing. This is a game and attorneys,
who I guess can’t get any other lawsuits, I
presume—they solicit people and they can
find a certain percentage of flippers.”
Robbins has developed property on
Miami Beach and is the current political
chair for the Sierra Club’s Miami-Dade
and Monroe Counties chapters. He
laughed at Hollo’s assessment, saying he
usually is involved in multimillion-dollar
commercial litigation and didn’t know if
he had time for a condo lawsuit. But dis-
CONDO LITIGATION continued on page 46
Developers of the Opera Tower, a 635-unit
condominium project in Miami, are being sued
by several out-of-state buyers who want out of
their purchase contracts.
IKEAMANIA ARRIVES, OPENING STORES IN THREE MARKETS
The opening of Ikea stores in a new market like Florida might be comparable to the
Swedish meatballs they serve: one is never
enough, but three ought to hold the hungriest shoppers for a good, long while.
The nationally popular retailer, which
has long sought to enter the Sunshine
State, opened its first two stores last fall in
Sunrise and Orlando, and aims to open
its third store in Tampa next summer.
Until lately, Ikea fans in Florida had to
drive to Atlanta or shop online for ready-to-assemble furniture and other household items.
“When you’re a Swedish company,
opening a store in Florida is a big deal, so
opening two within a month of each other
is even bigger,” says Joseph Roth, director
of public affairs for Ikea North America.
Both new locations have apparently
been well received, with thousands of
shoppers flocking to grand openings and
camping out to get inside first. Even
though those ardent fans waited many
years for Ikea to come to their city, the
company itself had to bide its time to
choose the best sites.
“We had looked at Florida for more
than five years and identified Orlando,
Tampa-St. Petersburg and South Florida
as three key markets that were integral to
our growth,” Roth says. “We knew we
would have to wait for the right sites.”
The Sunrise store is near Sawgrass Expressway, while the one in Orlando is
along Conroy Road near Interstate 4. The
Tampa store, the biggest of the trio at
353,000 sf, will be built on a 29-acre industrial site just east of the central business
district. Demolition work in Tampa began
in December and a groundbreaking ceremony is scheduled for this summer.
Retail brokers in Florida don’t view the
opening of three Ikeas in a short time
span as overkill, since the majority of their
stores are in destination locations with
population bases in the millions.
“They can draw from as far as 100 miles
away,” observes David Conn, executive
VP and Southeast director of CB Richard
Ellis’ retailer services group in Tampa.
“They’re a unique phenomenon.”
Ikea’s Florida push is part of an overall
expansion into the Southeast that includes
another new store in Charlotte, NC, as well
as a distribution center in Savannah, GA.
Once the Florida stores are finished next
year, Roth contends that will be all for now.
“Three stores are pretty standard for us in
the larger states,” he says.—Carl Cronan
