Prominent island developer Yane Zana has purchased the 4.7-acre oceanfront tract at 8050 A1A in Indian River Shores with plans to build a substantial luxury condominium community.
This is the second high-end condo project planned in the location. The first one, called 8050, never gained traction, but Zana has already sold two units and began to clear the site this week.
There will be four 26,000-square-foot condo buildings, plus a clubhouse with fitness center, 70-foot lap pool and putting green.
The four-story residential buildings, which will be nearly identical to the condo Zana is building on Ocean Drive across from Conn Beach, have a flexible configuration. The three occupied floors all have 5,000 square feet of living space that can be sold as a single residence or built out as two 2,500-square-foot units. With covered terraces, the square footage jumps to 6,600 and 3,300. Parking occupies the first level of each building.
Pre-construction prices range from $1,545,000 for a second-floor, 3-bedroom, 3.5-bath, 2,500-square-foot home with a two-car private, climate-controlled garage, to $3,995,000 for a full-floor penthouse unit with a four-car garage. Depending on what type units sell fastest, the community will have between 12 and 24 residences, with a unit-count in the mid-teens likely.
Zana is fast-tracking the project to take advantage of favorable market conditions.
“We are not wasting any time,” he says.
Preliminary land clearing is underway and Zana plans to go vertical in January, starting with the two south-most towers, once permits have been secured from Indian River Shores and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. He projects a 14-month build-time with units ready for occupancy early in 2020. Two have already been reserved.
If sales meet expectations, Zana plans to start the second two towers in mid-2019.
To accelerate the process and reduce his costs, Zana is using the complete set of building plans he and his engineers developed for the nearly sold-out Ocean Drive condo, where the concrete shell is now complete, which functions like a model home for the new development. The plans still must be approved by the Shores, but they meet all requirements of the Florida Building Code, on which local codes are based.
The site is nearly build-ready now. “It’s not in the flood zone and we will need to bring in very little fill,” Zana says. “We are not asking for any zoning variances. Those just slow you down. We are going with straight zoning.”
The favorable market conditions Zana is in a hurry to capitalize on are twofold. First, the U.S. economy and island real estate market are in good shape, with no looming thunderclouds on the horizon. Second, “reasonably priced” newly-built oceanfront inventory is almost non-existent in Vero.
Only one $2.8-million unit remains at Surf Club townhomes and other new oceanfront homes on the island range from about $5 million to $10 million, but a buyer can get into Zana’s project for $1.54 million.
“Of particular interest to us is the void in the market in the $3- to $4-million range for new construction oceanfront product,” he says. “We believe the double residence condominium homes fulfill for the first time in a very long time this element of the market.
“For $3.5 million you can get a brand-new oceanfront luxury residence as large as single-family home, and it’s in a lifestyle community with excellent amenities. That really doesn’t exist anyplace else in Vero Beach.”
Located just north of the Carlton, the 4.7-acre site with 300 linear feet of oceanfront originally was part of a 39-acre ocean-to-river tract that was assembled from grove land in 2004 as the real estate boom was heating up and sold to an out-of-state developer.
By the time the developer had plans and permits in place, the market had cooled off. Nothing was built at that time, and the land has been sold several times since then.
In 2014, Alloy Development, a partnership between Vero Beach businesswoman Katherine McConvey and New York architect Jared Della Valle, paid $7,250,000 for the 4.7-acre oceanfront part of the parcel that Zana and his partners now own.
Della Valle designed an 18-unit modernist condominium project with pre-construction prices that ranged from about $3 million to $3.5 million that drew rave reviews but never attracted buyers.
The project was taken off the MLS earlier this year and the land became available again, though it was not on the open market. Zana started looking at the property in May and closed on it June 15.
He is confident his condos will sell, even though the Alloy project never got off the ground. While his penthouse units are half a million more expensive that Alloy’s, his entry-level homes are only half the cost and he is targeting a wider slice of the luxury buyer demographic, offering six price points between $1.54 million and $4 million.
And he is selling a proven product in a project that is underway. If someone signs on the dotted line this month, they can plan on moving into their new home within 2 years, maybe a little sooner. With the Alloy project the wait-time was open-ended with at least a 3-year lag between the first contract and completion.
At the Ocean Drive condo, Zana sold the top floor as a 5,000-square-foot penthouse and expects to sell all the top floors and probably some second and third floors at the new project as full-floor units.
“I know the demand for that product is out there,” Zana says. “Those units will be 64 feet wide, as large as a single-family oceanfront house on a 100-foot-wide lot, with one-level living in a maintenance-free, amenitized community. You get all of that for between $3.5 and $4 million.”
The condo buildings will be in the Anglo-Caribbean style and all units will have private elevators, high-end fixtures, finishes and materials, and wide-open ocean views. Cabinets, flooring and other finishes can be customized in all units and the floorplans can be built to order in the full-floor residences.
The community will be surrounded with a block wall and have a secure, gated entrance. Amenities will include a fitness trail and barbeque patio as well and the clubhouse/pool complex, which will feature a spa, men’s and women’s locker rooms with saunas, 15 poolside cabanas and an expansive rooftop terrace.
The project, named Blue at 8050, is being developed by Vero A1A LLC, which is Zana and unnamed partners with Zana as managing partner. It will be built by Zana’s construction company, Coastmark Development. Engineering is by Schulke, Bittle & Stoddard L.L.C.
The condo units are listed with Kay Brown, Jeanine Harris and Luke Webb at Premier Estate Properties.
Blue at 8050 is Zana’s third oceanfront project underway on the island. Besides the 5-unit condo at 4091 Ocean in Central Beach, he is offering lot-home packages at North Shore, next door to the Disney Resort. He plans to start at 5,500-square-foot spec home there soon and has a double-lot for sale that can accommodate a large estate, which gives him exposure to pretty much the entire range of oceanfront luxury buyers.
“There was no master plan behind it,” Zana says, “but Coastmark Construction, in partnership with Premier Estate Properties, is now able to cover the full spectrum of new oceanfront price points in Vero, from $1.5 for a 3/3.5 condo residence to $8,995,000 for a 12,000-square-foot estate on a 3-acre oceanfront lot.”