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N MIAMI CONDO NEWS — All About Condo Living in the Magic City — Edited by Heinz Dinter, PhD |
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Spas bidding for piece of market May 13, 2006 • Projects include upscale condos, villas. “We’re selling a lifestyle,” a spa manager says. Every year, twice a year, Judy Eiserman from Toronto, Canada, vacations at a Canyon Ranch spa: summers in Lenox, Massachusetts, winters in Tucson, Arizona. So when she and her husband, Michael, heard about the new Canyon Ranch Living condominium development going up in Miami Beach, they didn’t hesitate. “We got on a plane to Miami the next day,” she says. Last year they purchased a third-floor, three-bedroom corner unit with granite counters and Miele appliances in the kitchen and floor-to-ceiling windows that overlook the ocean and a 750-foot stretch of sandy beach. Although she declined to say what they paid, similar apartments were going for about $2 million (all figures U.S.). “My husband heard about it from a realtor, who asked him if he had ever been to Canyon Ranch,” Eiserman says. “He just giggled and says, `My wife is going to go crazy.’” To the mix of gated communities, golf developments and condominium hotels looking for a piece of the hot vacation real estate market, add spa resorts. Armed with a cache of loyal visitors, a growing number of spas are now selling premium-priced condos and villas, along with the usual hot stone massages and oxygen facials. The projects range from 252 condominiums being built at the Bonaventure Resort and Golden Door Spa in Weston, Florida, to 12 homes going up on the grounds of the Rancho Valencia Resort in Rancho Santa Fe, California. “We are selling a lifestyle,” says Deborah Evans, general manager of Red Mountain Spa in Utah, which is building 52 villas against a backdrop of desert canyons and red rocks. “People who have bought here have an interest in long-term health and self care.” Indeed, Spa Finder, a spa travel and marketing company, started tracking spa real estate just this year. It already has more than 100 resorts in its database. The jump in the number of spas selling vacation residences has as much to do with the continued strength of the real estate market as it does with buyers seeking regular Ayurvedic treatments. “This is a function of those companies seeing an opportunity to get in on the surging housing market,” says John Burns, a consultant to residential developers. “Obviously, the long-term demographics for people in their 50s and 60s play into this. Not everyone wants to live on a golf course in Florida.” Canyon Ranch’s Miami Beach project is perhaps the splashiest entry. When the development is completed, it will have three swimming pools and a 70,000-square-foot spa building, including exercise areas and 22 treatment rooms, as well as an igloo, where guests can cool down after an herbal sauna. Owners won’t be able to move in until the end of the year, but the first phase of the 430 condominiums and 150 condo hotel rooms, with prices ranging from $1 million to $9 million, is sold out. The second phase, with prices starting at $1.7 million ($2.9 million for available three-bedroom condos), is about 70-per-cent sold. For a monthly fee of $350, buyers will have access to the spa and classes, as well as vouchers for $200 worth of food and treatments each month. Source: www.thestar.com.
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