By dollar value, it’s been a big month for Florida luxury real estate.
Last week, a 15-acre Naples waterfront estate closed for a whopping $225 million, the second highest home sale price in U.S. history and a new state record, dwarfing the $173 million Oracle’s Larry Ellison paid for his Manalapan estate south of Palm Beach in 2022. According to news reports, activist investor David Hoffmann is also under contract on a separate Naples estate for an undisclosed sum north of $100 million.
Across the Everglades on the other side of the state, high eight-figure deals are closing at an equivalent clip, including a La Gorce Island estate in Miami Beach which recently settled for $75 million. In total, sixteen homes priced at $40 million-plus have sold in Florida in the past six months.
These are big numbers in short order even by Florida’s recent standards, particularly with the stock market whipsawing, the full measure of President Trump’s tariffs still unknown, and the risk of a wider economic downturn looking more plausible by the day.
More broadly, the sales reaffirm several current trends. First, the asymmetry between the two ends of the housing market is widening further. On the mid to lower six-figure pitch where most Americans play, the majority of buyers are still spooked by punitive interest rates, stubborn inflation, and a legitimate unease about buying high. Not surprisingly, overall inventory is up, appreciation is decelerating, and sellers no longer have the stronger hand.
The other end of the housing market is showing more verve and braggadocio: before COVID, multi-million dollar properties could sit for years. Today, in most markets, they are still trading briskly while largely resisting the headwinds depressing the rest of the industry.
The growing asymmetry signals a hardening of a second trend originally triggered by the pandemic. With fiscal certainty still at a premium, wealthy buyers who can close all-cash deals are continuing to seek safe harbor in hard assets with limited supply: ergo, ultra-luxury real estate in NIMBY-enclaves where tight geography and even tighter zoning regulations keep inventory scarce and prices elevated. The S&P 500’s 77% bump since COVID also has roughly doubled the world’s eight and nine figure multi-millionaires. As a result, the overall demand for high-end residences in rarified communities with small airports and long runways, such as Aspen, Park City, Palo Alto, and Naples, looks to remain frothy for the foreseeable future.
The third trend borne out of the past month’s lather is geographic. If anything were poised to suck the oxygen out of Florida’s luxury real estate boom since the pandemic, it still hasn’t happened yet. And it’s financial center of gravity is finally, inevitably moving west.
This is all welcome news for Ryan Shear, Managing Partner at Property Markets Group (PMG), a Miami-based real estate development firm that’s behind some of America’s most architecturally iconic — and exclusive — residential high rises, including 111 W. 57th St. on Manhattan’s ‘Billionaire’s Row’ (a.k.a. “the world’s skinniest skyscraper”) which, at 1,428’, ranks as the second tallest residential building in the Western Hemisphere.
This week, PMG announced the launch of its newest precipitus opus: the Waldorf Astoria Residences St. Petersburg, a soaring 50-story tower that will be the Florida city’s tallest, priciest, and most palatial building once completed in 2030. For the storied hotel brand — originally founded in New York City in 1893 (now owned by Hilton) — the new development will be its fourth residential high rise in the U.S., following groundbreaking of the Waldorf Astoria Pompano Beach this month, the launch of Waldorf Astoria Denver Cherry Creek last year, and the Waldorf Astoria Miami which is currently under construction. For PMG, the project signifies an ever-deeper push into the luxury branded residence space and its biggest bet yet that the hyper-posh, super-amenitized, starchitect-designed high rise formula the company has mastered in Miami is just getting started on the other side of the state.
In many respects, Waldorf Astoria Residences St. Petersburg is surfing a wave that’s been breaking for years. The branded residential real estate space has been on a tear since well before the pandemic, outpacing the wider housing market by almost every metric and fueling a free-for-all of new entrants and partnerships both in South Florida and around the world. The forces and factors driving the sector — 5-star service, brand loyalty, and higher re-sale value, among others — have been exhaustively covered in dozens of articles, mine included, so I don’t need to undress them further here.
What’s noticeably different this time around, though, is the place on the Monopoly board Shear and PMG are putting new foundations in the ground. Historically most high-profile brands that have waded into the fray — among them early pioneers like Ritz-Carlton and Four Seasons and, more recently, Nobu, Aston Martin, and Armani — have tended to cluster around glitzy, global metropolises where real estate values are already sky high and the world’s 1% like to throw their money around, such as Manhattan, Miami, and Dubai. They’re also clustered in exclusive resort destinations in Los Cabos, the Yucatan, and the Caribbean.
That makes the prospect of a Waldorf Astoria tower in downtown St. Petersburg an outlier on the trend line which, in turn, portends a potentially significant shift in how the luxury branded residence game is played. If Florida’s central Gulf Coast — traditionally a magnet for Midwestern retirees and spring break beach benders — is worthy of world-class architecture and a high-society brand like Waldorf Astoria, who’s to say Raleigh-Durham and Colorado Springs aren’t next?
The reality is more complicated. Notwithstanding its fixed, physical form, real estate is innately fluid, albeit on a relatively more molten scale. Tastes change. Buildings decay. Neighborhoods evolve. Consequently, up-and-coming locations that simmered with possibility two decades ago might very well be tapped out today (think Fort Lauderdale). Similarly, cities and commercial corridors currently deemed ‘second tier’ or not befitting a Fendi, Cipriani, or comparably premium brand could be the next Nashville or Park Slope hiding in plain sight.
By this measure, St. Petersburg is definitely having its ‘moment’ — along with the rest of the greater Tampa Bay region for that matter. The drivers behind the boom are the usual Florida suspects: warm weather, low taxes, a healthy lifestyle, strong job growth, and a blossoming entrepreneurial scene thanks to a widespread in-migration of talent during the pandemic.
Yet, what’s currently happening in St. Petersburg is also part of a wider, longer-term trend. Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties on the state’s Atlantic Coast are finally spilling over, especially among the NetJets’ crowd. As a result, savvy investors and wealthy buyers now priced out of traditionally tony waterfront enclaves like Bal Harbor, Surfside, Jupiter, and SoFi (‘South of Fifth’) in Miami Beach are shifting their dollars — and Florida’s center of affluence — westward.
“Florida’s Gulf coast is among the most under-valued real estate markets in the country,” Shear tells me, “Especially compared with cities like Miami and West Palm Beach. St. Pete is a hidden gem that’s been under the radar for a very long time and it’s just beginning to come into its own. The city is also becoming a magnet for high net-worth individuals thanks to its vibrant cultural scene, stunning waterfront, and exceptional quality of life.”
For the locals and snowbirds who discovered St. Petersburg long before Wall Street and Big Tech did, none of this current praise-heaping comes as a surprise. The city often rates as one of America’s best places to live and retire on account of its affordability, walkability, beach access, up-and-coming culinary scene, and world-renowned art museums, galleries, and performance venues, including the Salvador Dalí Museum as well as the Chiluly Collection at the Morean Arts Center.
Socially and economically, St. Pete is also safe and inclusive and boasts a diversified economy with industries like healthcare and technology playing a significant role in the city’s sustainable growth in addition to tourism. In a recent study by WalletHub ranking the “Best-& Worst-Run Cities in America”, St. Pete ranked #1 in Florida overall. Nationally, the city’s economy ranked second, ahead of Atlanta, Charlotte, and Austin (by comparison, Miami came in #62, Fort Lauderdale #121).
“St. Pete has arrived,” says Larry Feldman, CEO of Feldman Equities which is co-developing the Waldorf Astoria St. Petersburg with PMG. “Over the past few years, we’ve witnessed the city’s incredible rise. And the introduction of the Waldorf Astoria brand is testament to this extensive growth and the natural progression St. Pete has undergone. We’re eager to deliver a branded residential development that meets the elevated caliber of living the city’s new residents desire, and I can’t wait to see all of the opportunities and incredible experiences this project will contribute to the downtown area.”
On this last point, Feldman made me realize something else about the current state of the branded residential real estate space: that it’s actually quite symbiotic. For Feldman, Shear, PMG, and Waldorf Astoria, St. Pete offers a rare opportunity: a lead position in an A-series round if Facebook were luxury real estate. In return, St. Pete gains global credibility virtually overnight thanks to Waldorf’s ‘legitimatizing’ effect on the city’s reputation, much the same way a James Beard award-winning chef opening up a new restaurant in a neighborhood that’s revitalizing is usually a sure sign it’s “arrived”
As a result, the value of Waldorf Astoria coming to St. Petersburg is far from simply architectural or temporarily economic in terms of job creation and investment. The original Waldorf hotel on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan hosted diplomats and distinguished foreign visitors and catered to the needs of New York’s socially prominent, “upper crust”. The Waldorf was also renowned for setting the original standards for luxury and indulgence in hospitality, including becoming the first hotel in the world to offer electricity and private bathrooms in every room.
“A project of this scale and caliber with a globally revered 5-star brand like the Waldorf Astoria attached has a profound, legitimizing effect on a city like St. Petersburg,” explains Shear. “It serves as a powerful signal that the city is not just on the rise, but poised for its next chapter of growth and transformation. St. Pete is a major luxury market that deserves the Waldorf brand, and this project will help the city gain global recognition, bring long-term development benefits, and I’m confident that other 5-star brands will follow suit.”
Another powerful side effect of a high-profile branded residential real estate project coming to a city like St. Petersburg is its ‘globalizing’ effect, particularly in South Florida, which has long been a magnet for foreign capital, and especially when an internationally recognized brand like Waldorf Astoria is involved. Shear anticipates that at least 30% of his buyers will come from Europe and Latin America, most of whom will reside in St. Pete part of the year and all of whom regard their purchases as a long-term financial investment (the other 70% will come from the Midwest and Northeast).
“We’re all selling sunshine and low taxes in Florida,” Shear says, “But along the West Coast in areas like Tampa and St. Petersburg specifically, premium real estate remains resilient, driven by sustained demand from both domestic and international high net-worth individuals who view the current market conditions as an opportunity to invest in tangible U.S. assets like real estate, which has long been a cornerstone of long-term wealth building. But unlike other investments, real estate offers the added benefit of personal enjoyment and use, delivering value beyond just financial returns especially when you consider that you’re living in a 5-star hotel.”
To merge Waldorf Astoria’s rich legacy with St. Pete’s unique history, character, and charm, PMG has tapped CUBE 3 for the tower architecture with interiors curated by the award-winning design firm BAMO. The high rise’s fully finished two- and three-bedroom residences will range from 2,031 square feet to 3,408 square feet and feature private foyers, custom closets, Italian vanities, chef’s kitchens, and expansive terraces with Tampa Bay views along with finishes, furnishings, and appliances befitting the Waldorf reputation for unparalleled décor and design. The tower’s top two-stories will be combined into the penthouse residence that will encompass 10,000 square feet overall with a private pool.
On the amenities side, a 20,000-square-foot, resort-style pool deck will feature a 160-foot east pool with Bay views, a sunset pool with dual spas, elegant lounge areas, and a bar, while the Amenity Suite on Level 18 offers a thoughtfully curated wellness center prioritizing holistic healing and connection with nature. Spaces in the center will include private massage rooms, his and her saunas and steam rooms, as well as a state-of-the-art fitness center and movement studio. On Level 46, residents will have exclusive access to the legendary Peacock Alley-inspired Sky Lounge, a signature space that captures the legacy, elegance, and sophistication of the Waldorf Astoria brand.
As for the next evolution in the luxury branded residence space?
Shear remains bullish on the niche market as well as the long-term drivers underpinning it.
“We never really know until we launch a new project, but we feel strongly that there is real depth for branded real estate developments not just in cities like Miami, but in cities like St. Petersburg too,” he says. “All indications are that there continues to be strong demand not only for seasoned, well-capitalized developers who deliver on time, but also for 5-star brands like Waldorf Astoria that offer buyers peace of mind, an exceptional quality of life, and design, quality, and craftsmanship that are second to none.”
If Shear’s instincts are right — which, based on PMG’s track record, they usually are — St. Petersburg and the wider Tampa Bay region, including Sarasota and Bradenton, are just getting started.
Residences at the Waldorf Astoria Residences St. Petersburg start in the mid-$2m.
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