Miami’s ‘Wall Street of the South’ Begins Construction

One of the biggest projects in Miami right now and until the end of this decade is the construction of the Waldorf Astoria Residences. A stack of nine glass cubes will constitute the tower set to be the tallest building south of New York City, and Miami’s first super skyscraper.

The ‘Wall Street of the South’ aims to establish Miami as the epicenter of the America, as the downtown development authority’s masterplan is for it to become the business, social, and cultural hub of both north and south America.

The Waldorf Astoria Miami Residences tower will be 1049 feet tall and 100 stories, making it the highest of those breaking ground in 2020 alone, with 20 other also under construction.

What will Waldorf Astoria Miami consist of?

The tower will consist of 360 residential condos and a 5 star hotel with over 200 rooms managed by Hilton. The structure is set to take the shape of nine spiraling glass cubes in an off-center stack that each serve a unique purpose. Cubes one through three will have all the hotel space, and cubes four through nine will be exclusive to condo owners, with cube nine specifically serving at the penthouse collection.

The skyscraper is being developed by Greybrook Realty Partners and Property Markets Group (PMG).

One of the engineering marvels PMG worked into the tower’s design is a pendulum at the top that counteracts swaying in high winds. There are also plans to use specialized technology called deep soil mixing to create a sturdy foundation. 

“Where other buildings might have taken four months of foundation, it’s going to take us a year to get all that structure underground just to support this building,” PMG chief executive Kevin Maloney said. 

PMG is also responsible for a number of high-profile hotel and condo buildings including Dubai’s Burj Al Arab, Echo Brickell, and New York’s 111 West 57th Street, also recognized as the skinniest skyscraper in the world.

Maloney added, “The building code in Miami is the strictest in the country, and that’s true about 1,000-foot towers or eight-story towers.” He also noted that 87 per cent of the condo space has already been sold, with units beginning at $2 million. 

Ryan Shear, Managing Partner of PMG said, “There’s not a city I feel safer in than Miami in terms of hurricane code” 

‘Wall Street of the South’ collaborations

The Waldorf Astoria Hotel and Residences Miami is the product of a collaboration between Seiger Suarez Architects company and architect Carlos Ott, who noted that the aim was to make “an iconic structure that defied the laws of gravity.”

By rotating each of the nine cubes and shifting them off the center of the building they designed it so that it could have unique views from each cube. The rotation of the cubes also makes the building look taller than it actually is.