BY NANCY DAHLBERG
ndahlberg@miamiherald.com
While most developers are pulling back as Miami’s high-end condo market slows, Vladislav Doronin is pushing forward with a 57-story luxury condo tower, and two more projects after it.
The Russian real-estate magnate’s Miami-based development company OKO Group is spending about a billion dollars to acquire the land and develop three local properties. Going up first: the $350 million Missoni Baia in the Edgewater neighborhood.
Developer Vladislav Doronin heads Miami-based OKO Group TAISUKE OTA
“Miami has become a 24-hour city and has become internationally significant,” Doronin said in a phone interview. “Miami’s airport is ranked second for international passengers in the United States. I also like the good weather and the happy lifestyle in Miami.”
Missoni Baia will seek to leverage both weather and lifestyle with views of both Biscayne Bay, which it fronts, and the city from its 146 multimillion-dollar residences.
Doronin, 53, is well known in international real-estate circles. Early in his career, according to The Wall Street Journal, Doronin traded commodities under the direction of Marc Rich, the oil trader charged by the U.S. with violating sanctions with Iran and tax evasion before being pardoned by President Bill Clinton.
In 1993, the St. Petersburg-born Doronin turned to real estate and launched Capital Group in Moscow, developing more than 70 projects with a total of 75 million square feet of commercial, retail and luxury residential space and working over the years with French architect Jacques Grange, the firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, and Pritzker Prize winner Zaha Hadid. His 85-story OKO Tower in central Moscow is Europe’s tallest completed skyscraper. Dubbed one of the “Kings of Russian Real Estate” by Forbes in 2014, Doronin is also chairman and owner of the ultra-luxury Aman hotel company, which he purchased in 2014 with a partner; a contentious court battle between the two recently was ruled in Doronin’s favor. He’s looking for a Miami Beach site for the expanding Aman.
Although Missoni Baia will be his first Miami venture, Doronin’s no stranger to the city. In 2014, he partnered with veteran Miami developer Ugo Colombo on the Brickell Flatiron condo project and another property in Brickell. They parted ways early this year, with Colombo taking the Flatiron and Doronin continuing with the Brickell property, one of the next projects on Doronin’s runway.
He has had vacation homes in the Miami area for the past decade; in 2009, he bought the Star Island home previously owned by Shaquille O’Neal, according to media reports. Although Doronin has not given many interviews over the years, he has drawn paparazzi attention for, among other things, his previous romantic involvement with supermodel Naomi Campbell.
Last year, he formed OKO Group based in Miami to focus exclusively on the U.S. market, primarily Miami and New York City. In addition to the three Miami properties, OKO Group is redeveloping New York’s landmark Crown Building — previously owned by the late Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos and later the family of former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer at the tony corner of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street.
And despite conventional wisdom to the contrary, Doronin believes there’s room in the Miami condo market for a project that is different.
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