Fort Lauderdale was once a place where the wealth floated through on its method to somewhere higher. Miami had the events. Palm Beach had society. Beyond the annual boat present and spring breakers, the Venice of the Atlantic Coast lacked the glue that comes with a sense of belonging.
But abruptly, the cash is staying, behind velvet ropes, as a personal members’ membership growth gives yacht homeowners a motive to linger in Fort Lauderdale.
“Fort Lauderdale has changed, and so have the people who live here,” said native restaurateur Marc Falsetto. “They travel, they know great restaurants, and they crave something refined.”
Restaurateur Marc Falsetto’s 80-seat Caviar Club is in excessive demand on East Las Olas. Courtesy of Falsetto Hospitality
Falsetto’s new restaurant, Caviar Club at 833 E. Las Olas, is an 80-seat steakhouse that opened this fall. Its interiors are an ode to Eighties maximalism — but less “Miami Vice” and more burled walnut, brass fixtures and Dover sole filleted tableside. The design comes from New York’s Garrett Singer Studio, the agency behind Torrisi and Gary Vaynerchuk’s Flyfish Club.
While Caviar Club is welcoming to the public, Falsetto said he has already offered out of “Founding 100” memberships. Perks embrace a concierge-run reservation app with most well-liked entry, a Hundred Acre wine library he claims is the largest outside of New York’s Polo Bar, a vault by the Macallan and reciprocity with other golf equipment through the reserving platform Dorsia. Falsetto offered out of memberships in three weeks, and the waitlist now hovers around 300 candidates.
“Everybody wants access right now,” said Falsetto.
Across city, another improvement is taking a completely different method. Pier Sixty-Six, a Nineteen Fifties resort and Fort Lauderdale landmark, was acquired by Tavistock Development Company in 2016 and quietly reopened in January 2025 after a sweeping renovation.
The personal membership at Pier Sixty-Six has a $75,000 initiation charge. Pier Sixty-Six
Part of the property’s new period is the addition of a personal membership — with a hefty $75,000 initiation charge and $15,000 in annual dues. There’s also a resort, residences, a marina that handles 400-foot yachts, 12 meals and beverage shops and a 40,000-square-foot occasion area.
“There are a lot of beautiful buildings being built in Florida,” said Pier Sixty-Six basic supervisor John Myers. “But what separates us pretty substantially is that those buildings are beautiful, but there’s no energy around their physical spaces.”
Next to arrive is Viceroy Residences Fort Lauderdale, where Naftali Group and the H.wooden Group are putting in a 15,000-square-foot restaurant and personal members’ membership. Residents also get a complimentary one-year social membership at the Fort, a close by pickleball membership, as properly as automated membership and entry to H.wooden’s wider community — which consists of Delilah areas in Dallas, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Miami and New York. Delivery is scheduled for 2029.
Not to be left out, the new Viceroy Residences will also embrace a personal membership. Hayes Davidson
“Expanding our footprint into South Florida is a top priority,” said John Terzian, co-founder of the H.wooden Group. “[Fort Lauderdale] is quickly becoming a global destination.”
They’re not the only ones betting on large-scale luxurious improvement. Developers Related Group, Tate Capital and Rok Acquisitions just announced the Bahia Mar Club, a 1-acre personal waterfront retreat completely for residents of the improvement’s forthcoming St. Regis Residences. Designed by panorama structure agency EDSA, the deliberate membership will embrace tennis and padel courts, a St. Regis-serviced clubhouse, a lap pool, a garden for yoga and tai chi, and a sundown terrace with fireplace pits.
There is presently an operational DoubleTree by Hilton on the web site of the future Bahia Mar Club. Demolition is scheduled to start in April 2027 and should wrap up before the following 12 months’s International Boat Show.
Expect lots of leisure ops like tennis and padel courts at the Bahia Mar Club.
“Very few coastal developments in the world offer homeowners exclusive access to this much private waterfront land,” said Pérez. While the Bahia Mar Club wasn’t conceived as a response to the metropolis’s membership growth, he said it “fits right into it perfectly.”
The other gross sales pitch is worth, comparatively talking. Pérez said comparable beachfront properties in Miami Beach or Bal Harbour promote for $3,500 to $4,000 per sq. foot, versus $2,200 to $2,500 in Fort Lauderdale. Residences begin at $4.9 million, while resort residences begin at $3 million, and he said the undertaking is 30% offered. Buyers vary from boaters to empty nesters to a strong contingent of snowbirds from the Northeast. Construction begins in late 2027, with supply in 2030.
The timing displays a broader shift in Fort Lauderdale’s luxurious market, where builders are promoting a ready-made social life — one that’s more low-key than Miami and more welcoming to outsiders than Palm Beach … assuming you can cough up the money for these initiation charges.
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