Related Goes Oriental

Related Group, the multi million-dollar development firm and leader in condominium development, is partnering with Orient-Express on a hotel/condominium mixed-use project on South Beach. The new hotel will include 100 rooms and 28 condominiums selling for upwards of $2 million, but according to Related Chairman Jorge Perez, the financing of the project does not depend on the pre-sale of the project’s condominiums.

“We felt at this point we wanted to do much more of a hotel project than a condominium project,” says Perez. “We think the future of both the hotel and real estate businesses is in providing great, great services.”

According to Perez, owners of the condominiums will have access to all hotel services, and the units might eventually function as condo-hotels allowing owners to rent their spaces to guests.

The Miami company who recently cancelled the building of a new condominium hotel tower, the Viceroy, on 801 South Pointe Dr., will be a full partner with Orient-Express in building the new hotel.

In addition, Related Group is in the process of building two other locations in Panama City, Panama and Cartagena, Columbia with Orient-Express, which Related describes as “the launching pad for more expansion, particularly in Latin America.”

Orient-Express, the luxury travel company, owns four resorts within the U.S., 11 in Europe, and five in South America as well as restaurant/club 21 in New York, where it is currently building a new hotel. It also manages some of the best trains, cruises, and restaurants around the world.

Orient-Express CEO Paul White says, “Both of [the companies] see this as the start of something big for the future,” and the way things are progressing for these two companies, it looks like that is exactly the kind of future for which they are both headed.

Via Miami Herald