Nitin Motwani is a man with vision. For nearly a decade, the Managing Principal of the $2 billion Miami Worldcenter development has been a driving force in Miami’s real estate landscape.
But for all the glitz in Miami’s real estate scene, Motwani attributes his entrepreneurial spirit and humble work ethic to his parents, who came to Florida in the 1980s and went on to reshape their adopted hometown for the better.
It seems entrepreneurship runs in your family DNA. Tell us about your South Florida roots.
My parents moved our family to Fort Lauderdale Beach from the St. Louis area in the mid-1980s. We operated a small hotel right on A1A called the Merrimac. I was seven and my brother was six. We basically lived on the beach and in the pool, and while we didn’t realize it at the time, we were learning the ropes of the hospitality and real estate business. My father passed away in 1994 and my mother took over the day to day workings of the family business. My mom and dad are my role models – in business and life. They have taught me so much over the years about entrepreneurship and humility.
Fort Lauderdale Beach has come a long way and today your family is helping to put the area on the map as a luxury destination. What prompted that evolution?
Everything changed when the City of Fort Lauderdale cracked down on the beach’s annual spring break festivities. It seemed like a crippling decision for local businesses at the time, but in hindsight it forced the community to rebrand itself as a family-friendly beach resort. For my family, that pivot meant thinking about our company as much more than a hotel business. We were now in the real estate development and investment business. Since then we’ve seen some of the best names in the hotel business open up resorts along the beach. Our family is currently involved in developing the Gale Fort Lauderdale and the new Four Seasons on A1A.
We hear so much about ‘brain drain,’ but you left South Florida for college, headed to New York and then ultimately returned. What drew you back?
I always enjoyed living down here as a kid, but I loved attending school at Duke and getting my feet wet in finance in New York. I was eventually able to convince my then-girlfriend (now wife) to join me in coming back. At first I focused on helping my mom run our family real estate business, and then I become involved in Miami Worldcenter in 2006. There’s something about South Florida that brings people back. It’s a gravitational pull – some combination of the quality of life that we have to offer and the entrepreneurial opportunity that exists here. I really felt like I could be a part of the transformation that had just begun in our community. Miami is a young city and there’s a sense that we keep improving the city through reinvention.
Tell us about Miami Worldcenter – what does that project mean for our community?
Miami Worldcenter is a 27-acre mixed-use development situated in the heart of downtown Miami. Our first phase alone is valued at $2 billion in private investment. This is a project that has been in planning for a decade, and we’re now under construction. The project will feature multiple residential towers, a high street retail promenade, a 1,700-room Marriott Marquis hotel, and an expo center to land that has sat undeveloped for decades. Our towers are going vertical now and the first phases will begin delivering in 2018. In the end, we’re going to be creating thousands of new jobs, improving the local streetscape with new public spaces, and bringing opportunity to an area of Miami that has been overlooked for too long.
We hear so much about Miami Worldcenter, but we don’t necessarily know where exactly you are situated. Give us some context about where your property lies.
Our property is in the Park West neighborhood of downtown, one block away from the Bayfront and within walking distance of Museum Park, the Arsht Center, American Airlines Arena, and the new Brightline train station. Much of our land was vacant before we began construction, so we are literally filling in the hole in the middle of the doughnut. We will be linking the Arts District with the Central Business District. We are where arts, culture, entertainment and transportation come together, and we’ll be providing great public spaces and amenities for pedestrians so that the community can enjoy all downtown has to offer.
If you could take on the role of mayor for one day with an unlimited budget, what would you do to change Miami for the better?
Fixing our transit infrastructure in one fell swoop would be a tough pill to swallow, but we need to tackle our traffic situation and adopt a pedestrian-first mindset. There have been some instances where private businesses and the public sector are making progress. We are widening sidewalks, improving Metromover stations and linking up with the Brightline rail service at Miami Worldcenter. The Marina PARC plan also prioritizes pedestrians and cyclists by creating new public spaces on Virginia Key.
These are good examples, but we can do more as a community. The proposed streetcar system running north from downtown is a great idea that would help alleviate congestion. I also think a direct connection between downtown and Miami Beach, through ether a light rail system or a ferry service, would be a welcome addition.