Miami is well-known for outrageous architecture—hell, even the parking garages look awesome. But in stark contrast to the timeless and beautiful Art Deco buildings lining South Beach, a sleek, cylindrical skyscraper casts shadows over the shores of Sunny Isles like some supervillain's not-so-secret lair.
Porsche Design's 641-foot-tall residential tower is a monolith.
When Porsche Design teamed up with Dezer Development in 2014, the two companies wanted to build something that would stand out. And boy does it. The same company responsible for bringing the first Trump residences and resorts to southeast Florida, Dezer Development certainly knows garish.
Construction of Porsche Design's colossal residential tower kicked off in 2014 and was completed three years later. Upon completion, it became the first automaker (or, automaker subsidiary) to have its name on a skyscraper anywhere in the world. But it certainly wasn't the last.
Seven years after Porsche Design opened its first tower, Aston Martin completed construction of an 818-foot skyscraper just down the road in downtown Miami. The Aston Martin tower is the tallest residential building in the city—and one of the largest in the entire country. It has 391 residences spanning 61 floors, a "yacht" marina, specifically, and "Sky Amenities" at the top floor with a curated art gallery, a game room, and 42,275 square feet of usable space.
The Aston Martin tower is the tallest residential building in [Miami]—and one of the largest in the entire country.
Soon, even more automaker-branded buildings will dot Miami’s skyline and elsewhere. Bentley owns a plot of land in Sunny Isles Beach for its upcoming 749-foot-tall skyscraper. Pagani has plans for a 28-story tower in North Bay Village. Mercedes-Benz just announced a 65-story residence in Brickell. And Bugatti is building a radical residential tower in Dubai with 11 "sky mansions." That's right, sky mansions.
Prices vary wildly for each residence—nothing for under six figures, of course. The Mercedes-Benz Miami residences will start at a scant $800,000 by comparison. The Aston Martin condos range from $1.2 million to as much as $52.5 million, while Porsche's residences start at around $3.5 million and go up to $33 million. One of Bugatti's "Sky Mansions" will set you back $5.5 million, and Pagani will ask for at least $ 2.2 million when its tower opens.
But why are so many automakers so interested in real estate all of a sudden?
The most obvious reason is the prospect of making boatloads of cash through licensing agreements. Simple. According to Robb Report, which did a deep dive into these automaker-branded buildings, skyscrapers adorned with logos people recognize fetch an expected value of up to 40 percent more than non-branded alternatives. In that respect, there's almost no reason not to do it.
But beyond the opportunity for quick cash, some companies see real estate as a chance to expand their footprints beyond the roads. Mercedes-Benz, especially.
In the last few years, Mercedes has rolled out an entire portfolio of lifestyle products, partnering with popular streetwear brands like Palace and musicians like A$AP Rocky. Its new Mercedes-Benz Places brand is the automaker's first go at residential properties, and it's already off to a promising start.
Eva Wiese knows these lifestyle partnerships are important. As the CEO and Chairwoman of the Executive Committee for Mercedes-Benz Customer Solutions, Wiese understands that expanding the brand's reach to new markets—like real estate—is an easy way to capture a new audience. But it also allows current customers to dive even deeper into the Mercedes-Benz lifestyle.
"You've seen quite a few places like this popping up," Wiese tells Motor1. "It is a growing business, so we looked a little bit deeper into it. And like so many things, we know what our brand is known for…. So to bring those important values in real estate… We thought why not go into that business? But it took us quite a few years to find the right partner."
Mercedes picked Miami and Dubai specifically—as have so many other brands—for their booming real estate markets. The company is working with the JDS Development Group for its Miami residence, a company made famous for past projects like 111 West 57th Street in New York City—aka, the world’s skinniest skyscraper—and the Brooklyn Tower just down the road. In Dubai, Mercedes teamed up with Binghatti Properties—the same company behind Bugatti’s upcoming residential tower—for its second residential property.
"Both places are well-known for being vibrant cities with a lot of global people moving to live there," says Wiese. "Both markets are real estate friendly and known for their high quality of life. So we thought it was a good idea to look into those cities."
In Miami, Mercedes-Benz will lay its foundation in Brickell, less than a mile down the road from Aston Martin’s skyscraper and a quick 30-minute jaunt from Porsche Design’s beachside residence. Brickell is one of the fastest-growing areas of Miami in the last decade and a popular spot for nightlife.
"It’s a very nice area," says Wiese.
But for Mercedes-Benz’s residence to make an impact amongst a sea of in-your-face architecture—especially the Porsche Design Tower—it has to be unique. That’s why the Places brand worked closely with Mercedes-Benz Chief Design Officer, Gorden Wagener, for a structure meant to be as eye-catching as the brand’s sports cars.
"Our design department and Gordon Wagener work very closely with Mercedes-Benz architects," Wiese tells us. "They look at the surroundings. What’s the city landscape that we’re merging into? Then they try to find a design that fits in. Something a little different but not too different. It should be something you haven’t seen but also matches a little bit."
In Dubai, Mercedes will take a slightly… different approach with its upcoming 65-story skyscraper. Given the city's eccentric lifestyles and blazing heat, the company is willing to take more risks from a design standpoint. The initial renderings preview a massive tower with a tinted, illuminated peak and Mercedes-Benz logos—a la the Mercedes EQS "grille"—littering the entire structure. It looks nifty.
And so many of these skyscrapers will look completely unique from other buildings on the skyline. Porsche Design Tower is a dark-tinted cylindrical monolith. The Aston Martin tower has a sail-like design that fits in perfectly with the coastal aesthetic. And other brands, like Bugatti, are letting their automotive designers let loose with little to no creative limits.
"If we give our designers the creative freedom to apply what we do with a Bugatti hypercar into a building, how would it look like? This [rendering] is the result," Bugatti-Rimac CEO Mate Rimac said in an interview with Robb Report.
The Bugatti Residences were designed with "curves reminiscent of the French Riviera," the company says on its website, and it will house 171 "Riviera" residences alongside those aforementioned 11 sky mansions. It will have a private beach, a private pool, a private valet, and a chef's table. How chic.
"[Miami and Dubai] are well-known for being vibrant cities... Both markets are real estate friendly and known for their high quality of life."
But it’s not just the brand names and radical designs that are drawing potential buyers. Porsche Design’s skyscraper introduced something we hadn’t seen in any living space before it: The much-lauded car elevator.
The Porsche Design Tower remains the only automaker tower with a car elevator, but soon Bentley and Bugatti will have one in their buildings, too. Dezer Development patented the technology with the completion of the Porsche Design building, unimaginatively naming it the "Dezervator."
On the surface, the Dezervator concept is pretty simple. An owner drives their car into a small glass room atop a platform, a metal plate slides under the car, the car is locked into place, and a high-powered lift carries the vehicle up to the desired floor. The owner then parks their car in their own "Sky Garage," either just outside of or right inside their penthouse, perfectly visible from the bedroom or living room at all times.
There are dozens of videos showing the Dezervator in action, and it looks pretty nifty:
Currently, the Dezervator can lift cars that weigh up to 8,000 pounds. But Dezer will look to increase that capacity in the upcoming Bentley tower, specifically for EVs. "We're trying to increase that to [10,000 pounds]," Gil Dezer, President of Dezer Development, told Axios in 2022. "There's a new Hummer—that thing is electric, 9,500 pounds."
The Dezervator is a huge draw for prospective buyers of the Porsche Design Tower and the upcoming Bentley Residences. Both are built by Dezer. Aston Martin, sadly, doesn’t have a Dezervator nor will Mercedes-Benz’s building. Although, Mercedes did at least tell us that both of its properties will have state-of-the-art parking structures and unique "mobility concepts," at least.
By 2030, there will be a minimum of five automaker-branded residences in Miami: Aston Martin, Bentley, Mercedes-Benz, Pagani, and Porsche. And there are at least two more on the horizon in Dubai with Bugatti and Mercedes-Benz. Given their initial success, don’t be surprised to see many more.
And can you blame them? Automakers like Mercedes-Benz and Bugatti are simply following the trends and the booming high-end market. Branded living spaces such as this are popping up everywhere; Armani and Dolce and Gabbana both have plans for skyscrapers in Miami, Missoni is building a 68-story tower in Toronto—hell, we wouldn’t be surprised to see the names Disney or Starbucks slapped onto a 600-foot tower as we inch closer to an Idiocracy-style dystopian hellscape.
But I digress.
For automakers like the ones mentioned, residences are a no-brainer. It’s a quick way to make cash through licensing deals while expanding their brand’s footprint to a potentially new segment of buyers. And for the consumers well-off enough to purchase one of these multimillion-dollar properties, the prospect of snuggling up next to your S-Class every night is a level of enthusiasm we can only aspire to.
