MARC LAWRENCE, LL.M. ’00
Miami Law. He opened his own general practice as soon as he graduated. “It was whatever walked through the door,” he said. “It was, in retrospect, a mistake.” Four years later, he went into a joint venture on a shopping center with one of his clients. He continued to practice law until 1986, but as time went on he spent more and more of his time developing. That legal experience, he said, has proven invaluable. “When you deal with governments, the safest thing for a governmental employee to do is to say ‘no,’ he said. “You hear ‘no’ a lot. And if we had accepted ‘no’ in every instance I wouldn’t have a single project. So practicing law and my legal background, number one, gave me a view and perseverance and the tools and the skills to challenge and overturn a bad decision. “It has enabled us to pioneer project types and to undertake extremely complex privatepublic partnerships and vertical developments, things that would be easier to proceed on a cookie-cutter basis with something that is typical. We’ve never done anything that is typical.” That’s even more apparent with SkyRise. Designed by the internationally recognized architectural firm Arquitectonica, the entertainment and amusement center is shaped like a free-form hairpin—100 stories tall. The 1,000-foot-tall building, located at Bayside Marketplace at the water’s edge in downtown Miami, is designed to house a 500-seat ballroom, a restaurant, private club and a nightclub nestled near its summit.
The signature attractions, however, are the thrill rides. The SkyRise Drop gives 12 riders at a time the free-falling sensation of skydiving. Planned as the longest and fastest drop ride in the world, the riders will be lifted nearly 650 feet up the building’s north face, then released. Magnetic brakes will slow them as they near the bottom. The Sky Plunge is described as being like base-jumping, with a “sophisticated bungee-like safety system.” The jumpers are to be attached to a wire to control descent as they plummet some 570 feet through the building’s open interior, at close to 55 mph. For the less adventurous, Berkowitz is including a “Flying Theater” to carry 72 riders on a hang-glider motion-simulator similar to Soarin’ at Disney World. They’ll actually be dangling close to 40-feet above the ground and surrounded by sounds, wind, and even smells on a filmed flying tour of South Florida. “I’m obviously an incurable optimist, but I think it’s going to be a very profitable enterprise,” Berkowitz said. “I have complete faith in my ability to pull all the pieces that are necessary together to make the jigsaw puzzle fit and to change the landscape of Miami and to give back something very significant to a community that has been very kind these last 40 years.” And, in the process, create a monument to the lasting impact of Miami Law.
Real Property Development LL.M. Success Story
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n 2004, Marc Lawrence LL.M. ’00 was working at the Related Group but was eyeing a historic but abandoned South Beach hotel on his daily run. He and his brother had set out to become developers; to that end he became a 2000 graduate of the Robert Traurig-Greenberg Traurig Real Property Development LL.M. The one-year program is for recent law graduates or attorneys from the U.S. or abroad, who want to gain expertise as practitioners, developers, or entrepreneurs, in planning, structuring, and financing property projects. The curriculum includes foundational and advanced subjects and concentrated courses taught by nationally recognized experts. The program is flexible, with oncampus full- and part-time options, distance learning, or as a joint J.D./LL.M. degree. Hands-on practical skills classes and internships give graduates the skills for any challenge. Addressing multidisciplinary and teamwork dimensions of real property development, the program includes opportunities to engage with peers and professionals from related fields such as architecture, business, and engineering, which was perfect for Lawrence. “I had the best professors at Miami Law,” said Lawrence. “They were all great and they opened so many doors.” The brothers walked away with the 50-room Mediterranean revival hotel, The Angler’s. An 85-room expansion is slated to open in 2016. 39