MIAMI—Innovation. It's one factor that sets apart the most successful commercial real estate developers in this residential cycle.

GlobeSt.com caught up with Adam Bedzow, a managing principal of Ceiba Groupe, go get his take on what innovation looks like. His firm is developing ID Flagler Village in Broward County. You can still read part one of this interview: This County Is Seeing Rapid CRE Transformation.

“We take a significant amount of time analyzing a potential development site and its surroundings to determine what type of project will be a perfect fit,” Ceiba Groupe's Adam Bedzow tells GlobeSt.com. “We look for what a community may be missing based on its demographics and fill the void.”

Ultimately, he says, his firm works to create innovative projects with a unique resident experience. He points to this example: When the company acquired land in Flagler Village north of Downtown Fort Lauderdale, he saw that most of the new residential construction involved dense, vertical projects.

“We decided to build a low-rise gated rental community with large three-story townhomes and private two-car garages,” he says. “We wanted to offer the comfort of the spacious homes found in the suburbs but in an urban setting.”

He sees it as giving people the best of two worlds. ID Flagler Village, scheduled for completion early next year, offers 23 for-rent townhomes of about 2,000 square feet with luxury features. ID Flagler Village was designed to embrace walkability and capitalize on the area's amenities, such as trendy restaurants and shops on Las Olas Boulevard, the Broward Center for the Performing Arts, the NSU Art Museum, the Wave Streetcar and the Brightline, among others.

“In Davie, we are building Suede Downtown Davie, a mixed-use project that will help transform the evolving Davie corridor,” he says. “The area needs more quality retail so phase one of the project will include 209 market-rate apartments and approximately 30,000 square feet of retail, restaurant and office space. The Davie corridor is home to some of state's finest colleges and universities so we want our project to reflect that by bringing the right retail and housing options.”

Is there overbuilding in South Florida's residential market? Here's one view.

MIAMI—Innovation. It's one factor that sets apart the most successful commercial real estate developers in this residential cycle.

Is there overbuilding in South Florida's residential market? Here's one view.

Instant Insights /

How One Residential Developer Is Driving Innovation

Related Stories

Recommended For You