Poor Shaq. He has been trying to unload his Star Island mansion for nearly five years with little success. Is there no one out there right now who wants to buy a 200,000 waterfront mega-palace on a 2.5 acre lot? He’s cut his asking price by about 10% to a…
Hotel aficionados already know the name Vikram Chatwal, but for the rest of us, well, you might know him as the guy in the turban who stood behind Hansel during the runway-showdown scene in Zoolander. Yes, he has a side job as an actor, but his main gig involves opening…
With news that Bacardi will soon be moving to blander headquarters in blander Coral Gables, preservationists are making a preemptive move to ensure their iconic buildings in midtown Miami are protected with landmark status, even though neither is old enough to typically qualify. The Historic Preservation Board meets today to…
Recession stories are getting pretty standard, and boring. One formula goes like this: find some nice industry and find out how the recession is hitting it. CNN just filed one, about nannies, focusing mainly on Miami. Amanda Mezyk is a 20 year-old professional nanny who just got laid off. As…
Sometimes it seems like the economy is hitting Miami-Dade from all sides, but there’s a bit of good news: We’re not quite as unemployed as the rest of the state. Florida’s unemployment rate for February was released today, and it is not good: 9.4 percent! That’s up from 8.1 percent…
I imagine being stuck on a boat with a bunch of cruise ship people is bad enough, but recently returning to Miami I was stuck on a plane full of cruise ship people. Pure airline hell: horrendously behaved toddlers, people eating strange smelling food, and quite a few folks who…
Miami and New York City have a weird symbiotic relationship. New Yorkers, jealous of our warm winters, come down in droves during the chilly months and eventually retire in a nice high rise on South Beach. Meanwhile, a strong contingent of Miamians with an inferiority complex or a civic identity…
We’ve found the predicament of Midtown Miami to be quite interesting for a while now: noting its trouble both here on Riptide and in print. Now the Grey lady is weighing in on the development’s slump in a piece that just went online: “The bankruptcies of Circuit City and Linen…
U.S. Economy used to be the number one band in the world. Flying between gigs in private jets, constantly hitting the top of the charts, and attracting screaming fans wherever it went. Then Real Estate (on bass) got really into cocaine, and just got higher and higher and higher eventually…
We know Paris Hilton doesn’t have anything to do with the management of the hotel company that bears her family name, but sometimes you have to wonder. In the midst of the latest, greatest depression and economic free fall you might expect any new hotel plans to include cots, a…
Integrated Asset Services released their latest IAS360 House Price Index, and as you might expect, the news isn’t good. Between January of this year and January 2008 housing prices have dropped a total of 28.4% in South Florida. That’s 29.1% in Broward, 18.8% in Palm Beach, and a whopping 32.3%…
Nothing is immune to the economic crisis, not even the palm tree’d oasis in Coral Gables known as the University of Miami. After many alumnus expressed their concern, president Donna Shalala sent out a letter to all alum today addressing the impact on UM. Here’s the highlights: UM has made…
After OJ Simpson had to switch his residency to a prison pen, Kendall has been missing a sports star resident to call its own. Well, trading OJ Simpson for Michael Jordan would be a major coup. As first reported by The Palm Beach Post, it seems Michael Jordan and his…
Fisher Island is the most expensive zip code and has the highest per capita income of any area in the nation. It is home (or second home) to the likes of Oprah, Florida First Lady Carol Rome, Andre Agassi, and Mel Brooks. Oprah, we hear, is doing just fine during the recession,…
Oh, look. We’ve topped another depressing list. No, this one isn’t calling us fat, in fact it’s practically guaranteeing we’ll be skinnier in one area: our wallets. PMI group released its list of riskiest real estate markets, and Miami ties with Riverside, California as the riskiest. The chance of home…
Here’s another tidbit courtesy of financial magazine’s OCD need for lists: Fortune predicts that the Miami-Miami Beach are will be the fourth worst real-estate market for 2009. No real analysis attached to the list-icle, but they predict that the median house price in the area will fall 22.8% next year. Ouch. In 2010 they predict the…
Miami’s foreclosure fiasco rages on, and its latest victim is a familiar face. Rapper/producer Wyclef Jean took out a $2 million mortgage to purchase and renovate a Miami Beach spread but failed to keep up on payments, according to the Palm Beach Post’s Jose Lambiet (who apparently doesn’t know much…
Fresh off the re-opening of the Fontainbleau, Miami Beach is bracing for another hotel ribbon-cutting. The Mondrian quietly opened its doors to guests two days ago, but the official grand opening will take place during Art Basel. The brains behind the design (and naked candy-throwing enthusiast), Marcel Wanders, is interviewed…
via Car Pages UK South of Fifth, the super-luxe ocean front condo complex, still has about a quarter of its units to unload so they’ve added a sweetener to the pot for potential buyers. What, like free maid service for a year? Waiving any owners associations fees? A complimentary netflix…
via Shop Midtown When the mega complex of Midtown Miami opened many worried it would stymie the growth of Wynwood’s art scene. How are artists supposed to meditate on all the darkness in the world when there’s a deal on 2 for 1 tube socks just a few block away?…
About two years ago Chad Oppenheim Architecture + Design announced plans for COR, a revolutionary green high-rise in the Design District. The building would incorporate wind turbines, photovoltaic panels, and solar hot water generation, and feature a hyperefficient exo-skeleton. It was originally supposed to be finished by 2009. Well, not…
via TMZ Joan Fleischman isn’t completely gone from The Herald, and is reporting that Alex Rodriguez and his soon to be ex-wife just listed their Coral Gables mansion for $14.876 million. That’s almost $3 million more than what they bought it for in 2004. Even the upper ends of the…
