David Martin has made a career reshaping Miami. The Terra Group CEO has put up area-redefining towers across the region, but projects in his native Coconut Grove solidified his legacy as one of the Magic City’s most ambitious developers. While Martin’s business has expanded — he has projects as far north as West Palm and all along Miami Beach —the Grove maintains a special place in his heart. Martin spoke with The Real Deal Weekend about his lifelong relationship with the neighborhood, his favorite spots, and his daily Grove lifestyle.
TRD: You grew up in Coconut Grove. What was it like?
David Martin: It was very connected at a time in the ’90s when Miami Beach really hadn’t taken off. The Grand Bay Hotel was the first five-star hotel in Miami in the mid-80s, and so Coconut Grove had a certain nightlife and entertainment focus. I remember Sylvester Stallone kind of [bringing] Hollywood here.
There was this coffee shop called Joffrey’s that everybody would go to. Joffrey’s, Crazy Flamingo, then you had Mezzanotte, which was this amazing restaurant where people would go and dance on tables. It just had this very lively scene.
But what’s interesting about the history of the Grove is its kind of mantra, its focus on tree preservation, the green-ification of the neighborhood. And the University of Miami is close, you have a lot of graduates and professors, so there’s a very intellectual community. There are roots that are really deep.
TRD: There seems to be a lot of local flavor here. What’s helped keep that character?
DM: There’s a lot of restrictive zoning. You really can’t build a lot of tall buildings. The neighborhood’s not going to really change because the trees are everywhere.
There are places where the community connects and unites on a vision of what the Grove is about. You still have these fairs and parades. Obviously we have our Coconut Grove Arts Festival. I remember as a kid going there, how important that was — this was before Art Basel and everything else. And then there’s the King Mango Strut, which was another kind of festival, a satire-type festival. It was a place where you could have a little slice of urbanism when Miami didn’t have much of that.
TRD: But you’ve built quite a few tall buildings in Coconut Grove — high-rise condos like the Grove at Grand Bay, Park Grove, the Mr. C Residences, commercial properties like Grove Central and the Mr. C hotel — and you have your office in the Grove, right?
DM: When I started the company in 2001 we were in Brickell, then we transitioned over to Biscayne and then we moved to the Grove in 2011.
TRD: So it seems like Coconut Grove has changed a lot in that time.
DM: In 2010 there was a big transition. We started making investments in the Grove in 2011. We bought the Grand Bay Hotel, and then we bought a 3-acre site, a 6-acre site, a 2-acre site — the more urban sites that you can do something at scale.
What I felt was kind of like, there was this peace when you’re around trees. I know it’s kind of funny that I’m saying it. But fosters a lot of quality of life that I look for for my family, and I look for for the employees and families that work with Terra.
So our firm basically, probably, bought all the sites and all the development that has occurred in the Grove over the last 14 years. We probably built over $2 billion worth of projects, but we’ve always done it enough with a less-is-more approach. We have sites that we could build 400 units, we ended up building 90. Less density.
We found that Coconut Grove [attracted] a lot of empty nesters. In Coral Gables people were living in big homes with 10 bedrooms and spending time in one or two of them. In South Florida in the ’90s, you did well in your career and you would go buy a big house on a big lot. In the Grove we were trying to spin that, saying, No, there is a quality in living in an urban condition. When we were trying to market and talk about it in 2011, people were like, Coconut Grove, what’s that? But slowly and slowly, we’ve started seeing it.
TRD: So what’s your day in Coconut Grove like?
DM: I take my son to school first, and after that, I’m in my office at 7:30. I’m drinking tea. I used to be a big coffee drinker, but I’m definitely a tea drinker now. I’m not usually doing breakfast out, but I can have breakfast meetings at Green Street Cafe, or Bellini and Mr. C Cafe. Sometimes at Sadelle’s now — that’s right next to my office. There’s also a super cool old-school bagel place called Coral Bagels.
But the morning is filled with meetings. I’m not that interesting. I work a lot, way too much. I’m just stacked with meetings. We order in a lot for lunch. Most of the time I am eating at my desk, or in a meeting with people. I’m always trying to invite people in to have meetings — we have a really cool office, so that helps.
At night, there’s a great scene here, but we utilize the food scene everywhere. There’s a very cool omakase joint that just opened up that is kind of quiet, nobody knows about that yet.
TRD: And what about on the weekends?
We get invited to a lot of the yacht clubs for brunches on the weekends, or there’s also a farmers market at Vizcaya. So that’s really cool. There’s a farmers market also in the Grove on Grand Avenue in the West Grove. We bike ride a lot. Biking is a big thing in the Grove. There’s a national tropical botanical garden, the Kampong, and it’s the only one of these sites that isn’t in Hawaii. That’s cool.
We’re really excited about the Coconut Grove Playhouse opening up — it’s been closed for a while. There’s also a strong sailing community here. The Olympic sailing team trains out of the Grove. And there’s a great organization on the water called the Shake-a-leg. My son has volunteered there.
A lot of people don’t really know about everything that was here. They are not really chains. I think that also gives it a little charm as well. It’s a very cool place to just walk.