This Luxury Miami Condo Building Is Launching An NFT Art Collection For Its Owners

Just in time for Miami’s Bitcoin 2022, the largest bitcoin conference in the world, Lofty Brickell Residences Miami announced it is launching the first-ever NFT art collection designed for Lofty condo owners. Not only will owners be gifted an original NFT with the purchase of a condo, but the building will feature a special NFT collection with digital art displayed throughout the building’s common areas.

Digital art will be featured in the lobby and common spaces and will feature works from four artists, including Miami-based multidisciplinary artist Carlos Betancourt. Lofty is a 44-story condo tower with units ranging from studio to two bedrooms, priced from around $439,000 to around $800,000. The building also features 40,000 square feet of incredible amenities. It’s Miami’s first luxury condo tower designed for home sharing and short-term rentals. It’s located in the up-and-coming Brickell neighborhood, just steps from the city’s fabulous restaurants and a short drive from South Beach. The building is developed by Newgard Development Group and designed by renowned architecture and design firm Arquitectonica.

“Our local government has made it their mission to encourage technology companies, specifically in the crypto space, to do business here,” founder and CEO of Newgard Development Group, Harvey Hernandez, tells Forbes. “Combined with Miami being home to a group of the most innovative and forward-thinking developers, it’s only natural that the two worlds converge.”

At closing, the developer plans to transfer NFT ownership to the buyer’s digital wallet. They are able to display the art within their units and share the pieces within the rotating collection in the shared spaces throughout the building. This marks the first condo building to embrace NFTs in this type of real estate transaction. Lofty’s NFT program is a collaboration with Indiewalls, a New York-based art consultancy.

Betancourt, a contemporary artist whose work has been featured within collections at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery and more, will be the first out of four artists to create this digital art. For this debut series, he will activate his Re-Collections VIII series into an animated, movement-driven series that features spirals of flowers and objects. The idea is to reflect the functions of the brain and how important the recollection of memories are in defining our life. The Newgard team is committed to showcasing Miami’s diverse community and heritage through other local artists’ work as well. These artists will be revealed at a later date.

“The concept aligns with our forward-thinking vision for the future of home ownership,” Hernandez says. “Lofty is all about owning luxury real estate differently. We want to encourage our residents to also own art differently and enjoy it everywhere, on their own terms.”

Miami is one of the country’s crypto capitals, home to several crypto companies and investors. It’s also one of the leading cities when it comes to real estate merging with cryptocurrency, NFTs and the metaverse. Earlier this year, ONE Sotheby’s in Miami announced the launch of a real-world home being sold using NFT technology. Even other cities in Florida are encouraging NFT technology. Earlier this year was news of the first-ever real estate transaction in Tampa, where a woman purchased a home using NFTs. Even the presence of NFTs and crypto culture at the recent Art Basel Miami was a turning point in the city’s acceptance of digital art. This might prove that this is just the beginning of the roles NFTs will play in both art and real estate. In Lofty’s case, it’s both.

“Miami’s real estate market is establishing itself as a national incubator for new residential models, with short-term-rental-powered condos quickly becoming the most in-demand product available,” Hernandez says. “Lofty is more personalized and connects unit owners to each other and encourages a cultural connection by weaving next-generation art into the building.”