MIAMI-Less than three months after beginning construction of the 849-unit Everglades on the Bay condo complex, Aventura-based Cabi Developers is moving forward with its plans for Capital at Brickell. The project will be a mixed-use complex occupying a full city block at 1420 S. Miami Ave. in the heart of the financial district. Also designed by Coral Gables-based Fullerton-Diaz architects, this project will contain 888 residential condo units, approximately 48,000 sf of retail and 98,000 sf of office condo space.

As with the Everglades project, located at the site of the former Everglades Hotel at 244 Biscayne Blvd., Cabi declines to provide an estimated construction cost for the Capital complex. Jacobo Cababie, CEO of Cabi, is out of the country and could not be reached by deadline. Nicholas Grossi, president of Aventura-based Marka-Tech Associates, which is handling condo sales for both complexes, says, "hard cost construction estimates are not my department."

Grossi tells GlobeSt.com that Everglades on the Bay "is 95% sold. When we started marketing it one and a half years ago we were ahead of the curve. There were about four condo developments under way, now there are about 400." Cabi has recently opened the sales office for Capital at Brickell.

Despite this, he says, "we're not concerned about absorption. Miami is the next major city in the country, and we are getting buyers from Europe, South America, the West Coast and everywhere. Will it slow down a little? Maybe," he says, but claims to have 200 reservations for Capital at Brickell since mid-June. Regarding groundbreaking, Grossi says, "that will depend on reaching the pre-sale requirements of a lender, but we expect to break ground in 2006." The land currently contains a single-family house, a parking lot and two small multifamily buildings. Grossi says Cabi expects to clear the land in the next few months.

The residential component of Capital at Brickell includes a 53-story building with 384 units, a 57-story tower with 432 units, and 72 units at the base of the complex. They range in size from 500-sf studios at selling prices in the $300,000s, according to Grossi, and include lofts, one-, two- and three-bedroom units and "sky-level lofts" on floors 46 through 50. The latter are approximately 2,500 sf and prices are in excess of $1 million. "There will also be no fewer than two and no more than four penthouses as large as 10,000 sf," he says. "Those prices have not been set because we don't have all the costs in line, but they will reach to $7 million or more."