Flagstone Nabs Westin for $480M Island Gardens

MIAMI-Flagstone Property Group and While Plains-based Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide have revealed that Starwood will build a 350-room Westin hotel in Island Gardens, the mixed-use resort Flagstone plans on Watkins Island. The Westin Miami at Island Gardens is scheduled to open in early 2008. It is one of two hotels planned for the 1.6-million-sf project that Flagstone estimates will cost $480 million. In response to its RFP for development of the resort, the City of Miami awarded Flagstone a 75-year ground lease on the land.

This represents Flagstone’s first project in the US. The company is an affiliate of an international developer based in Turkey. Mehmet Bayraktar, chairman and CEO of the local operation, which he founded in 2001, has named Bethesda, MD-based Clark Construction Group general contractor for the additional components of the new project. It will work through its Tampa office, and Bayraktar says the construction costs for its part of the resort will be $300 million.

The additional components, according to the plan, call for a second hotel tower with 147 rooms and 105 fractional residences above them, a 50-slip yacht harbor deep enough to accommodate so-called “super yachts,” approximately 220,000 sf of retail and restaurants along with a spa, gardens, galleries and a 1,600-vehicle parking garage.

The ground lease allows for the construction of the 105 residences, which will aggregate approximately 340,000 sf. Seven fractions of each unit, or a total of 735 fractions, will be for sale. The majority, 55%, are three-bedroom units of between 2,300 sf and 2,500 sf. Another 25% are four-bedroom, 3,000-sf units, with the remaining 20% two-bedroom units of 1,800 sf. The fractional properties will have access to the services of the hotel beneath them, which is described as five-star, although the brand has not been disclosed. Calls to Bayraktar and Clark Construction were not returned by deadline.