Life Time Signs a 20-Year Lease to Anchor Crescent Heights' 1,307-Unit Edgewater Project
Health club operator Life Time signed a 20-year lease at Crescent Heights' 2.6-acre site at 3180 Biscayne Boulevard, where the developer has filed plans for two towers with 1,307 apartments.
MIAMI — Edgewater’s fitness war has a new heavyweight. Life Time, the high-end health club operator formerly known as Life Time Fitness, has signed a 20-year lease at 3180 Biscayne Boulevard, a 2.6-acre, full-block development site owned by Crescent Heights, Commercial Observer reported on Oct. 28, citing documents filed with Miami-Dade County.
The deal gives a national fitness brand an anchor spot in one of the biggest residential projects proposed for the Biscayne corridor. It also shows how developers are using amenity tenants to give large apartment projects a draw on day one.
The Project: Two Towers, 1,307 Apartments
In January, Miami-based Crescent Heights filed plans for two towers with 1,307 apartments, 1,163 parking spaces and 98,729 square feet of commercial space, according to Commercial Observer. The site sits between Northeast 31st and 32nd streets and currently holds low-rise commercial buildings.
The gym will likely be part of a mixed-use development that uses Florida’s Live Local Act. The state law gives developers faster approvals when at least 40% of units are priced as workforce housing. If the project moves forward under that framework, a sizable share of those 1,307 apartments would be set aside for workforce renters, a meaningful addition in a neighborhood better known for luxury condo towers.
Crescent Heights, led by Russell Galbut, already has a track record nearby. In 2024 it completed the 40-story Forma rental tower in Edgewater, which has a Whole Foods on the ground floor.
Inside the Lease
The lease runs 20 years and includes four five-year extension options, according to Commercial Observer. If every option were exercised, that would add up to as many as 40 years. Property records site Traded lists the deal as closing on Oct. 28 and did not disclose a transaction amount.
The terms show how valuable fitness has become as a building amenity. The lease gives Life Time exclusive rights to operate a pickleball court and group fitness classes, including cycling, Pilates, yoga and barre, in one building. The developer can still build a gym of up to 4,000 square feet for residents.
That kind of exclusivity is a signal. Pickleball and boutique-style classes have become major draws for urban renters, and Life Time is protecting its turf inside the project rather than competing with an in-house amenity next door.
Representatives for Life Time and Crescent Heights did not immediately respond to Commercial Observer’s requests for comment.
A Crowded Fitness Corridor
Life Time, based in Chanhassen, Minnesota, is entering a busy market. Commercial Observer noted that Equinox signed a 31,000-square-foot lease at Oak Row Equities’ mixed-use high-rise a few blocks south, a project nearing completion, as The Real Deal reported. Anatomy also operates a 15,000-square-foot gym in the area.
Three premium fitness operators within a few blocks of each other says something about who developers and operators expect to live in Edgewater. The neighborhood has filled with high-rise rentals and condos along the bay over the past decade. Its residents are the kind of members premium clubs want: people who live close by and can walk downstairs for a 6 a.m. class.
What It Means for Local Businesses
For small businesses in Edgewater, a large mixed-use project with nearly 100,000 square feet of commercial space and more than a thousand new households could mean real foot traffic. Cafés, smoothie bars, physical therapists, athletic apparel shops and wellness practitioners tend to cluster around big gyms. Retail tenants will be watching how the rest of that commercial space gets leased.
There are still steps between a signed lease and an open club. The towers have to win approvals, secure financing and get built. No construction timeline or opening date was disclosed in the reporting, and the Live Local framing comes from the developer’s filed plans as described by Commercial Observer.
The Bigger Picture
The Life Time deal fits a broader pattern in Miami real estate: developers are betting on large rental projects along transit-friendly corridors and using lifestyle anchors to stand out. With Florida’s Live Local Act offering a faster path for projects that include workforce units, the 3180 Biscayne site is a good one to watch. It will show whether a luxury-leaning fitness brand and workforce housing can share the same block, and how quickly Edgewater’s next wave of towers can move from filing to construction.