Construction Starts on Ombelle's Twin 43-Story Towers Downtown
The Brooklyn-based developer is self-performing as general contractor on a site it bought for $27 million in 2021, targeting a 2028 delivery.
Vertical construction has begun on Ombelle, a two-tower, 43-story condominium project at 316 NE 4th St in downtown Fort Lauderdale, developer Dependable Equities confirmed. The Brooklyn-based firm, led by principals Isaac Schlesinger and Simon Dushinsky, is building 754 units across the twin towers, with architecture, interiors and landscape design by ODA. Dependable Equities is also acting as its own general contractor; no outside GC is named in the project’s public marketing materials, and neither Broward County nor the City of Fort Lauderdale publish a searchable permit index we could independently confirm the number against, unlike Miami-Dade’s.
Why it matters
A 43-story job breaking ground is a real commitment of capital and labor to downtown Fort Lauderdale at a moment when several other towers proposed under the Live Local Act, including the nearby Terrasse, are still sitting in city review. Ombelle is not using that state override; it is a conventionally entitled project that took roughly five years from its 2021 site acquisition to notice-to-proceed. For contractors and subcontractors in South Florida, a self-performing developer starting a 754-unit high-rise job is a large, multi-year source of trade work independent of whoever wins future GC bids elsewhere in the pipeline.
The numbers
Ombelle totals 754 condominiums, studio to three-bedroom, spread across two 43-story towers sharing a shared podium on a roughly two-acre site. Dependable Equities paid $27 million for the land in 2021 and has closed on $50 million in pre-construction financing from Dwight Mortgage Trust. The project carries more than 100,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor amenities, including a 35,000-square-foot Equinox gym, over 11,000 square feet of ground-floor retail, and 895 parking spaces. Douglas Elliman Development Marketing is handling sales, with pricing that started in the $400,000s.
What’s next
Dependable Equities is targeting a 2028 delivery, a timeline typical for a project this size once vertical work starts. Construction financing beyond the $50 million pre-construction loan, reported at roughly $300 million in earlier project coverage, has not been confirmed as closed. The American Developer will follow the job’s permit activity and construction financing as they become publicly available.