Island residents driving north on Indian River Boulevard from the Barber Bridge have been wondering for some time what is about to go up at the massive construction site just south of Regency Park and 41st Street.

Turns out it’s a high-end apartment and townhouse complex – with spacious units ranging up to 2,800 square feet that will start at $5,500 per month – which developer Tom Cavanaugh says will bring a new level of luxury to rental living in Indian River County.

The 189-unit project – designed in large part for downsizing islanders looking for an elegant, carefree lifestyle – clearly stands apart from typical rental communities.

“There is nothing else like it in Vero Beach,” Cavanaugh told Vero Beach 32963, “and not much else like it on the East Coast of Florida.”

Two features hint at the tone of the project.

“There will be a glass-walled, climate-controlled wine room where residents can store and retrieve their wine and a lounge next to it with a baby grand piano,” said Cavanaugh, president of PAC Land Development, which has developed more than 10,000 apartments worth more than $1.5 billion, specializing in luxury projects in quaint Florida towns.

“For a little extra flair, we will have two 2,500-gallon aquariums so people can watch the fish while they are sitting at their high-top listening to the piano.”

Those amenities are separate from what Cavanaugh calls “a very high-end demonstration kitchen with Wolf appliances and a private dining room,” that will give residents the option of bringing in a personal chef for a private dinner party a few steps from their apartment door.

“The units themselves have quartz countertops, top-of-line appliances, smart technology features and designer lighting,” says Hannah Cavanaugh, Tom Cavanaugh’s daughter and a development associate at PAC Land Development.

The apartments will also be much larger than most of those found locally, ranging from 900-square-foot one-bedroom units up to three-bedroom apartments with offices and soaker tubs.

“What Tom is building is an excellent fit for our market,” said commercial real estate broker Keith Kite, who was Cavanaugh’s broker when he bought the project site in 2022. “It’s a product that doesn’t exist in Vero Beach and really fills a void.”

Besides islanders who have cashed out of their 32963 houses and are ready to ditch the hassles of home ownership, Kite expects professional singles and couples who work at Cleveland Clinic Indian River Hospital and in other medical offices on 37th Street to be another group of tenants.

In the current inventory-challenged housing market, where home sales sometimes are stymied because a person ready to sell can’t find a suitable replacement house to purchase, residents will likely also include people looking for a luxurious place to live near the island while building or continuing to look for the house of their dreams.

The complex will include private garages and carports, a fitness room with separate yoga and spin rooms, a game room, golf simulator, spa and steam room, pickleball courts and “a resort-style heated saltwater swimming pool,” according to PAC Land.

Cavanaugh says he has “had an infatuation with Vero Beach since my parents moved here when I was in college. We are always looking for that quaint little seaside town that is perfect for one of our projects.

“We are a high-end developer, and we look for those demographics. We’ve completed a couple of very successful projects in Naples, and we see Vero as similar. It is a small, charming, underserved market, especially as it relates to true luxury rental.”

Cavanaugh says his team did an extensive search for the right piece of property in Vero that “lasted for more than a year.”

He eventually brought in Keith Kite to tap his local expertise. 

“They gave me the parameters of what they wanted, and I identified the size acreage they needed in several locations, including out by the mall and on the west side of Indian River Boulevard,” Kite says.

“When I understood they were planning a high-end, ultra-luxury, concierge type project, that narrowed the focus and we zeroed in on the land on Indian River Boulevard.”

The land they found – a triangular, 23.6-acre wooded parcel at the southeast corner of the Indian River Boulevard/41st Street intersection – belonged to well-known Vero Beach developer Warren Schwerin and had been for sale for a decade, according to Kite.

The land was in the county when they found it, but Cavanaugh and his team applied to the City of Vero Beach to annex it and were successful. The city allows higher density for multifamily housing than the county.

Kite, who was involved throughout the predevelopment process, said the planning and approvals were a heavy lift.

The property adjoins Indian River Land Trust conservation property and is only about a third of a mile from the Indian River Lagoon.

The project needed approvals from the city, the county, FDEP, Florida Inland Navigation District and others, as well as a drainage easement agreement with the Land Trust.

“We concluded an easement agreement with them in late 2022,” says Land Trust executive director Ken Grudens. “We’re satisfied the project in environmentally sound.”

The Vero Beach Planning & Zoning Board approved Cavanaugh’s site plan in January 2022 and Cavanaugh closed on the land 11 months later, in December 2022, shortly after reaching agreement with the Land Trust, paying $3.75 million for the property. Construction Journal estimates the value of the completed project at $130,800,000.

Proctor Construction Company started sitework in late summer 2023 and buildings will begin to rise in coming weeks. Cavanaugh said pre-leasing will start in the fourth quarter of this year, with residents picking up their keys late in the first quarter of 2025.

There will be one large apartment building with elevators and air-conditioned corridors, seven duplex townhouse buildings, three parking garages and numerous accessory buildings. A massive stormwater containment lake has been excavated and there will be extensive landscaping, as required by city code.

The apartment building will be U-shaped, creating a large lakefront pool and recreation courtyard.

The project started life as the Park Pointe Apartments but will make its debut as The Vivien, a name Cavanaugh chose because he wanted something with a classier ring. The project website, www.TheVivien.com, was slated to go live on Wednesday.

The Vivien is part of a nationwide trend toward more Class A, luxury apartments that is driven in part by high barriers to home ownership and mobile lifestyles, according to CNBC and smartapartmentdata.com.

“A striking development in the first half of 2023 was the record construction of luxury apartments, with an unprecedented 200,000 units built, surpassing the previous 6-month record by 25,000 units,” smartapartmentdata.com reports. “This boom suggests a strong market response to sustained demand.”