Elle Plans Branded Condo Tower in Miami

Fashion and media company Elle is joining a parade of high-profile luxury brands that are developing branded condo towers in Miami.

Elle is teaming up with Vertical Developments and Urban Network Capital Group on the brand’s first residential project—to be known as Elle Residences Miami—a 25-story condo and hotel tower that will be built on a half-acre site at 3618 Northeast Fifth Avenue.

The developers have inked a licensing agreement with Lagardere News, a unit of Paris-based Lagardere Group, which owns Elle, the French company announced. The condo tower in Miami’s Edgewater section will include 180 units as well as a penthouse collection.

Major luxury brands have been lining up to attach their brands and styling to condo projects in South Florida.

In February, Mercedes-Benz announced it would brand a luxury condo tower in Miami’s Brickell neighborhood that will become the German automaker’s first branded North American real estate development.

Mercedes-Benz entered an agreement with JDS Development Group to put its brand on a 67-story, 2.5M SF luxury project that is one of the largest under construction in Florida. Terms of the licensing deal were not disclosed.

The development, which began in 2022 under the name of 1 Southside Park, will now be called Mercedes-Benz Places. The cube-shaped structure will be home to 791 residences ranging from studios to three-bedroom condos, as well as penthouses.

Renderings of the silver-clad building include a huge Mercedes-Benz logo over the entrance. The mixed-use tower will include 200K SF of office space, a 174-key Treehouse Hotel, retail space and a city of Miami fire station.

A Mercedes-Benz design team is working in collaboration with SHoP Architects to infuse the Brickell project with the automaker’s “hot and cool” design philosophy.” Urban landscape designers Field Operations, who worked on NYC’s Highline, are designing green spaces at Mercedes-Benz Places.

Elle’s new branded condo development will permit condo buyers to make the units available for short-term rentals.

More than half of the nearly 21,000 units in the 31 condo projects in the development pipeline in South Florida will allow condo buyers to make the units available for short-term rentals with few restrictions, according to a report from ISG World.

The trend toward condo developments that permit short-term rentals has been rising due to continued demand from buyers, including foreign investors. Short-term rental-friendly condos can be priced lower and often sell out faster as investors buy them to generate income from rents.