Executive Suite Today’s Entrepreneur: Miami magnate gives city a makeover
If you stand in just the right spot on the Brickell Avenue Bridge, it’s possible to think that every new building in this rapidly evolving city — every single glass-walled pillar of aspiration and ambition — belongs to one man: Jorge Perez.
Of course, that’s not the case. Even an urban developer as ubiquitous as Perez can’t be everywhere. But visible from the modest concrete span over sparkling Biscayne Bay are the three towers of the $1.5 billion Icon Brickell hotel and condominium project, the multihued facade of another condo building called 500 Brickell and the eye-catching Loft 2, distinguished by a public transit system that passes through an opening in its midsection.
The three projects are among 11 freshly minted buildings that Perez, chief executive of closely held The Related Group, has under construction in what was once a desolate downtown landscape. Coupled with earlier projects already completed, the distinctive cluster puts Miami on track to have a people-friendly downtown worthy of a city that bills itself as the unofficial capital of South America. And it’s cementing the Cuban-American entrepreneur’s standing as one of the nation’s most prominent Hispanic businessmen.