Miami Developer Talks Pioneering Miami River, Being the Only Woman at the Table

These days developer Lissette Calderon is dubbed “the Miami River Queen,” but there used to be a time when a young Calderon was asked to get coffee during meetings.

Once a male colleague told her, “When you were reading the first chapter, I was finishing writing the book,” Calderon recalled.

Calderon, founder and CEO of Neology Life Development Group, grew her real estate career through relentless hard work, as well as unwavering love and enjoyment of her job and the fortitude to ignore condescending comments.

She pioneered Miami River residential development, worked two stints for Jorge Perez’s Related, and is developing in Miami’s Allapattah.

“I probably worked 18 to 20 hours a day. I still do. I am involved in every aspect of my business,” Calderon said. “I work on vacations. There’s no such thing as disconnecting. Nothing worth having comes easy.”

Calderon’s first project on her own was NeoLofts condominium tower in the early 2000s. It was the first residential project along the Miami River in decades after it slumped into a forgotten industrial hub with dilapidated shipyards.

This was followed by Neo Vertika and Wind by Neo condos. She came back to the river in 2018, buying and renovating 20-story River Oaks Marina & Tower. She rebranded it Pier 19 Residences & Marina.

Calderon is finishing 14-story, 192-unit No. 17 Residences in Allapattah in March with leasing starting early next year.

Next are 323-unit 16 Allapattah and 237-unit Allapattah 14, both 12 stories and set for construction next year.

The Miami River District and Allapattah, which is on the north side of the river, are emerging neighborhoods fueled by demand from nearby Health District and Civic Center.

The Health District is home to Jackson Memorial Hospital and its emergency room, University of Miami Health System and its affiliated the UM Life Science and Technology Park, and the Miami VA Medical Center. The Civic Center is home to the state attorney’s office, the Richard E. Gerstein Justice Building and a pretrial detention center.

Allapattah and Miami River District residential demand is fueled by the roughly 46,000 Health District employees, she said.

“We have always built for the people who live and work in the urban core,” Calderon said. “I am an urban dweller. I love city living. I love everything city living affords.”

Calderon spoke with the Daily Business Review about why she got into real estate, how New York influenced her project in Miami, and her next dream project.

Your are the daughter of Cuban immigrants. Tell me more about your personal background. 

“I was born on the banks of the Miami River,” she said.

At the time her parents lived in residential towers that later were demolished to expose the Miami Circle.

Her paternal grandmother, Fidelia Calderon, was the granddaughter of a Cuban senator who worked as a housekeeper at the Four Ambassadors apartment-hotel towers in Miami’s Brickell. More than that, the elder Calderon was a profound influence on her granddaughter.

“To her there was no shame in hard work and my parents instilled in me there’s no shame in any hard work,” she said.

Today the young Calderon builds towers a few blocks from where her grandmother worked, and in that her family achieved the quintessential American dream, she said.

After graduating from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, you worked as an investment banker in New York. It’s there that you drew the inspiration to bring loft-style living to Miami with NeoLofts and Neo Vertika. Tell me more.

“Miami doesn’t have the industrial 100-year-old building legacy that other cities have. We had to take the concept of loft living in New York and create it with a Miami flare,” she said.

NeoLofts and Neo Vertika have 20-foot high ceilings and include a mezzanine level for the bedroom that takes up roughly half the floor plan.

In New York, Calderon also fell in love with living near a river.

“New York has the Hudson. When you travel, you go to Paris, London, Cairo, the rivers are kind of the heart of the city. It was seeing all these different rivers and combining it with the loft concept that prompted me to build lofts on the Miami River,” Calderon said.

In her first few years after returning to Miami and before embarking on NeoLofts, Calderon worked at Related. Projects included the redevelopment of a Coral Gables bus terminal into Gables Grand Plaza.

“Just because you see something as it is, doesn’t mean it needs to be this way going forward,” she said.

NeoLofts was your first project on your own. Was it difficult to get it off the ground and secure financing given you still hadn’t established yourself? 

“I was doing it for Jorge so I thought, ‘Why can’t I do it for myself?’ I didn’t have Jorge Perez’s balance sheet or his reputation,” she said. “But I think it was my naiveness that it never crossed my mind and a little bit of ‘I can’t take no for an answer.’”

She finally got the financing but not before several banks declined and laughed at her,  she said.

“Now I am sitting back, saying ‘I told you I was right about the Miami River.’” she said.

You are hailed as a trailblazer not only for developing along the river and jump-starting the Miami River District but also for establishing yourself in the male-dominated field of real estate. Miami is diverse and open-minded but do you think being a woman affected you? 

“I do believe there is no greater city than Miami to do what I do. I know no other city would have allowed me to pursue the American dream,” Calderon said. “I have never seen myself as lesser than any man.”

To this day she is still often is the only woman at the table during professional meetings, and outside of Miami. she is often the only Hispanic woman.

“Maybe some people would think of it as a disadvantage, but to me it’s always been an incredible advantage,” she said.

“There’s strength in being underestimated and then proving yourself,” she added.

Calderon now is a top speaker at real estate panels but it wasn’t always like this.

When she was starting out, remarks included: “You remind me of my granddaughter” or “What do you think, you are the woman,” she recalled.

Yet, she is no pushover and never was afraid to speak up, a quality she credits to her grandmother.

“She was a housekeeper but she taught me to believe in myself,” she said.

Similarly, her Miami River projects aren’t second best to bayfront and oceanfront projects, but use the river to their advantage, and are unapologetic about it.

“I have never pretended to be anything but a woman in this industry. I dress the way I dress. I speak the way I speak, and I don’t apologize for it,” she said.

That’s not to say she hasn’t had significant male mentors, including Perez, who let her take on as much work as she can handle while at Related.

At construction sites, her male colleagues say they wish their daughters could meet her so the young women can see that they, too, can work in real estate.

“It’s always about breaking down barriers and hoping to leave it a little better for the next generation,” Calderon said.

Nothing would make her happier than seeing more women enter the industry.

“It’s an incredible career. You get to use your left and right sides of your brain,” she said.

You have said you set your sights on Allapattah because it’s an emerging neighborhood with untapped potential. But in Miami there’s the ever-present divide between developers and existing residents. On one side are developers such as yourself who say they are unlocking potential in overlooked neighborhoods. On the other, existing residents say the new construction is gentrifying them by increasing the cost of living in areas where they have lived for years. Where does your work in Allapattah fit in this divide? 

“I only go to neighborhoods where people want us, where we can be a part of the community,” she said.

Her projects are rising on empty lots or replacing abandoned buildings, she explains.

“We never really gentrified anybody. We don’t just build for our particular project. We build for the community,” she said.

This means she also works with the city to renovate and reopen two run-down public parks near her projects and improving streets and lighting in the neighborhoods.

The coronavirus pandemic stopped a topping-off party for No. 17 Residences and the funds were used to buy groceries for 80 Allapattah families.

Has the pandemic impacted your projects? 

“Absolutely. Anybody that says 2020 hasn’t impacted them, would be lying,” Calderon said.

The No. 17 construction site had to be adapted for social distancing and hand sanitizing stations were added. Inspectors were hired to ensure mask wearing and distancing.

The project still is being delivered on schedule, she added.

Are you planning on expanding beyond Miami and developing elsewhere. 

Calderon wants to grow to other parts of the Southeastern United States, including the rest of Florida.

“I am looking to build a national female-led multifamily development company, founded and headed by a woman,” she said.