April 2025 | Mike Vogel
David Martin in his stylish gold-rimmed glasses and Prado sweater comes off more as artsy designer than as one of Miami’s most prominent and prolific developers, a 47-year-old mover of much concrete with $14 billion in projects in the pipeline — and a bookcase secret door in his office.
The $14 billion includes some of the biggest projects in his Terra Group’s quarter-century in business. An 800-room Grand Hyatt hotel under construction at the Miami Beach Convention Center. Two condo towers and a hotel on the site of the demolished Deauville Beach Resort, which once hosted the Beatles. Luxury condos and a 13-acre park on half of Watson Island in Biscayne Bay. Voters in November approved his plan for Watson, making him 2-1 in referendums, a successful record in Miami development politics.
In an interview, though, he glides over those three. Instead, he can’t stop advocating — for about two hours — for how business, government and community can align for change. Call it the Terra model in which developer showpieces provide resources for cities and create parks, community centers and more. “We could do amazing things together,” he says.
Terra works, as Martin says, in “all food groups” — single-family homes, affordable and workforce housing, luxury residential, office, hotel, retail and industrial. He specializes in developing government-owned land in public-private partnerships and also specializes in transit-oriented projects. He’s written on real estate’s role in climate resiliency. Terra last year ranked 116th on FLORIDA TREND’s list of the state’s largest private companies. Annual revenue was $670 million. Martin also is on FLORIDA TREND’s Florida 500 most influential business leaders list.
From Gainesville to the Grove
Martin was born in Gainesville, while his father was in law school, and raised in Miami’s Coconut Grove. His paternal grandfather was a master tobacco blender profiled in Cigar Aficionado. Martin’s maternal grandfather owned funeral homes where young David worked. His father, Pedro, was a partner in law firm Greenberg Traurig before it became a global powerhouse. David also earned a law degree from the University of Florida — along with a bachelor’s and MBA — but turned entrepreneur. In college, he took out a $50,000 line of credit to open a coffee shop. After college, Martin and his father launched Terra.
Martin has a good, but not perfect, track record of voter approval for his projects. In 2020, Miami Beach voters shot down his offer of $55 million for the land and air rights needed to build a Bjarke Ingels-designed tower on a third of an acre at the city marina.
Miami attorney Neisen Kasdin, back then Miami Beach mayor, met with an “earnest” Martin, then 23, and his father about Terra’s first project, a 33-unit, six-story condo called Nautica.
“He’s certainly come a long way since then,” Kasdin says. Martin built a reputation for quality construction and design, Kasdin says, and for winning community support for his proposals. “He’s obsessive about that,” Kasdin says.
Martin personally attends government and community meetings rather than rely solely on consultants and professionals. He donates to elected officials’ campaigns — $90,000 last year, according to the Miami Herald. He preaches sensitivity to neighborhood concerns, whether trees or traffic. “Those communities know more about the issues and challenges of that neighborhood than I do,” he says. “We have to engage the community intelligently.”
And he’s willing to deal — creating green space and consolidating development on a portion of a site to win approvals. Partly, that’s altruism and practical politics, though he volunteers it also enhances his properties’ value. Example: Terra and partners received Miami Beach approval in 2019 to build the tallest tower on Miami Beach, their 48-story Five Park condo tower on a site with a seven-story height limit at the MacArthur Causeway entrance into South Beach.
They won approval because they gave up density — developing only 230 of 330 approved units — built it on just two acres of their sixacre site and paid $10 million to build on the remainder the first new public park in Miami Beach in 50 years. They also agreed to build a $30-million pedestrian bridge — $12 million of it city money — over the causeway. Construction on the bridge, designed by France’s Daniel Buren, known for candy-bright designs, began in January. Says Martin, “We’re always trying to find, how do we find resources to help? That park is an asset to that project, OK? That pedestrian bridge is an asset. We think sometimes too project-specific, rather than neighborhood-specific, you know?”
Martin touts the gain in the tax base, and thus government spending and community benefit, that come with development. He cites Coconut Grove, where he tore down the defunct 200-room Grand Bay Hotel, bought for $24 million and replaced in 2015 with Grove at Grand Bay’s 98 condos valued cumulatively at $400 million. The project has less density and therefore less impact on traffic and city services while providing more revenue to government.
He says all this in a building-width room in Terra’s headquarters on Mary Street in Coconut Grove. The building was an underutilized Miami Parking Authority garage that he repurposed — there’s still parking — into Class A office space. A deal team of some of Terra’s 100 employees sit before monitors at a long conference table. The room offers a view of Grove projects Terra already did and a mixed-use development underway. Martin frequently turns to his laptop and pulls up on a huge monitor hanging behind him projects, aerials, maps and brochures. As he dives into individual designs or amenities, he frequently says, “Super cool, right?” In his office just steps away, one of the bookcases can be pulled out to reveal a hidden door into the garage and his parking spot.
Martin — a married father of two — serves organizations devoted to Biscayne Bay and The Underline, a 10-mile linear park under Miami’s Metrorail, and has donated to various civic causes.
Seeking Magic, and Alpha
In devotion to project aesthetics, Martin emulates premier Miami developer Jorge Perez and his Related Group, whose HQ sits square in Martin’s view from his desk. Both are aesthetes and both share a Hispanic heritage, but Martin has far to go to match Related in scale. Martin’s Terra has done $8 billion in projects; Related has done $40 billion. Martin collaborates with Related and other firms on projects. Collaboration reduces risk. Like Related, Terra also is known for bringing in renowned architects and designers. On his monitor, Martin brings up a photo of himself with famous designers at an annual conference Terra hosts.
“There’s a creative side, right?” he says, “A magical side where you’re placemaking and, you know, making sanctuaries for people’s souls, right? Then there’s this other side of business that has fundamental real estate — demand, demographics, population, migration, employment, you know, income growth and construction management, etc. We’re always in kind of two different worlds.”
Thus, he talks about the magic and the alpha — the anticipated above-average return on investment. For that alpha, Martin likes high barriers to entry such as neighborhoods with restrictive zoning. “I’m big on scarcity,” he says. That explains his interest in public-private partnerships. The interactions may be complex, but the sites are unique, especially in built-out Southeast Florida where tearing down to build anew is generally the only play.
Terra has deep market experience in Coconut Grove, Miami Beach, Doral in west Miami-Dade and Pembroke Pines. Martin is branching out to Overtown, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach and Boca Raton. He’s embarking on investing in turnaround properties elsewhere in five Florida and Sunbelt cities, though he’s not ready to identify them.
Overcoming Hurdles
His path has had its strains beyond the usual. The Great Recession caught him with $1 billion in debt. He weathered it, then purchased property at a discount. The recession, he says, “retooled me a bit” to be less aggressive in underwriting deals and to broaden his focus from projects to neighborhoods. Not everything worked out. In 2023, he neared a deal to acquire for $1.2 billion — Miami’s biggest real estate purchase ever — Malaysian conglomerate Genting Group’s 15-acre bayfront site that once housed the Miami Herald. The deal fell apart.
Terra’s most painful turn followed development of the oceanfront Eighty Seven Park condo designed by Pritzker Prize-winning Italian architect Renzo Piano. Replacing the old 220-room Biltmore Terrace Hotel with a 66-unit condo, Eighty Seven Park, a joint venture between Terra and two other firms, went up on Miami Beach’s boundary with the Town of Surfside very near the Champlain Towers South condo there. To gain approval, the developers in 2015 contributed $10.5 million to improve the adjacent Miami Beach North Shore Open Space park and infrastructure. A Miami Herald article called it an “example of Terra’s community-minded approach.” In return, Miami Beach closed a road and built a beach walk on the Surfside border between Champlain Towers South and the new condo building.
Eighty Seven Park finished in 2019. In 2021, Champlain Tower South collapsed, killing 98. Some surviving residents complained the construction vibrations impacted their building. The collapse continues to roil the Florida real estate market. The state boosted requirements for regular building inspections and reserves for repairs, putting thousands of unit holders across the state on the hook for assessments they can’t afford. Families and survivors sued over the collapse. Terra and its partners denied their project had anything to do with the collapse and pointed to evidence Champlain was poorly done and inadequately maintained. Litigation was settled for $1 billion. Insurers for the venture that developed the condo project paid $28 million to settle, according to court filings. Insurers for the project contractor agreed to pay $241 million.
Martin says his project didn’t contribute to the Champlain collapse, but it became a question “about those families and the hardship they’re dealing with.” He says he prays for them and decided that “God put me in this position, and so I had to, you know, just, man up and deal with everything.” The National Institute of Standards and Technology continues to study the cause of the collapse.
It hasn’t tarnished Martin’s reputation. “He’s done a lot of nice projects. David Martin’s been a top-notch developer,” says real estate consultant Jack Mc- Cabe of McCabe Research & Consulting in Deerfield Beach. “A lot of developers have eyed Watson Island for a long time now. Others have tried without success. It’s amazing he was able to get the voters in the surrounding areas to approve his project.”
Terra and ESJ Capital Partners will donate $15 million to Miami for affordable housing and infrastructure, pay $135 million for 5.4 acres on Watson’s north side, keep 13 acres for a public park they’ll build at no cost to the city, and in return will get to build two luxury towers totaling up to 600 units.
He once again turns to his laptop and this time dives into the weeds of a single street connecting Terra projects already completed in Coconut Grove and on its perimeter. Terra, Martin says, offers technical assistance to community organizations and other property owners to “lift the neighborhoods” where it builds. “Whenever I go into a neighborhood, I want to make it better,” he says. Plus, he repeats, it’s good for his current and future Grove investments.
He displays a Terra study on making the Southwest 27th Avenue route into Coconut Grove — now a “less Grove-y” intersection with a Burger King and Shell at Dixie Highway/U.S. 1 — into a mile-long, landscaped, designed, pedestrian-friendly street. At the far end on busy U.S. 1 would be his Grove Central, a retail and 402-apartment development attached, in a public-private partnership, to the Grove Metrorail station.
Upgrading 27th Avenue would be good for his Grove Central — converting an at-best nondescript road into an attractive promenade to the heart of the Grove — and encourage people in the Grove to use mass transit. That idea leads Martin to reflect. Government needs to regulate and review efficiently — he talks for a bit on how much costs can rise while government plods — and he adds that government needs to update its zoning more frequently to realize the potential of property.
But also, instead of blaming resource-strapped government, developers should see what they can contribute in terms of parks, schools, transit, design or strategic direction. “There’s so many things that just aren’t happening in our community, and they’re not happening for various reasons, but one of them is resources. If you could find a business way of achieving what the mission is — we hack capitalism to solve society’s needs. That’s like, that’s everything. That’s my passion.”
Terra
FOUNDED: 2001
SIZE: No. 116 on FLORIDA TREND’s ranking of the state’s largest privately held companies, with annual revenue of $670 million. The firm has $14 billion in projects in the pipeline.
Projects Underway Include:
Grand Hyatt, Miami Beach Convention Center
The 800-room, $600-million project is being done with Jackie Soffer and her Turnberry Associates, owner of Aventura Mall and office and hospitality properties. The convention center hotel received voter approval in 2019 and is slated for a 2027 completion. The city’s redevelopment agency gave the project a $75-million grant last year.
Upland Park
The $1-billion mixed-use project at a park-and-ride bus station in west urban Miami-Dade where Florida’s Turnpike and the Dolphin Expressway meet will be the county’s largest transit-oriented community. The 47-acre site will hold a 126-room hotel, 2,000 market-rate apartments, 282,000 square feet of retail and 427,000 square feet of commercial and a charter school. The venture will pay $1 billion over the 90-year land lease.
Centro City
The 38-acre project will feature 1,200 apartments and 300,000 square feet of retail across from Magic City Casino in west Little Havana. Being done in phases, it’s a reimagining of an old retail plaza that held a Zayre discount store. (Martin’s father once worked there.) Martin says retail investor competitors focused on its retail potential, but he outbid them by realizing its capacity to hold apartments.
Projects in the Planning Stages include:
Watson Island
Voters in November approved plans to redevelop, separately, the north and south sides of the city-owned island east of downtown in Biscayne Bay. Terra and ESJ Capital Partners will see their Ecoresiliency Miami pay $135 million for 5.4 acres on the north side where they plan two high-rise condos totaling up to 600 units. In return, they are to build a public park on their own dime on 13 acres and donate $15 million to the city for affordable housing and infrastructure. The deal gets rid of the Jungle Island amusement park. On the south side, Fort Lauderdale’s BH3 Management and Merrimac Ventures won approval to build two towers for condos and hotel rooms, plus retail and offices in return for no more than $25 million.
Deauville Beach Resort
Two luxury condo towers and a new hotel will replace the historic Miami Beach hotel, which was shuttered in 2017 following an electrical fire. Martin last year bought a quarter share of the project ownership from Meruelo family interests for $12.5 million. The Beatles performed their second U.S. show at the old hotel in February 1964. John F. Kennedy gave an address there days before his assassination.
Palm Beach Kennel Club in West Palm Beach
Once the Rooney family ownership moves the West Palm beach casino on the former dog track to elsewhere on the site, space will be freed up for Terra and the local Frisbie Group to develop 2,000 apartments.
Boca Raton Innovation Campus
Terra will develop in phases 1,200 residences, retail, event and commercial space at CP Group’s 1.7-million-sq.-ft. suburban Boca Raton Innovation Campus, the one-time IBM site where the personal computer was developed.
Boca Raton City Hall Campus
Also in Boca, a venture of Terra and Palm Beach-based Frisbie Group won a city competition to redevelop the 30-acre city hall campus with 2.5 million square feet of office, retail, a 150-room hotel and 1,129 residential units.