Last night I had the honor of moderating a panel on social media and marketing for real estate brokers at the model unit and sales center for the Residences by Armani Casa in Sunny Isles Beach. It was a fun talk and I’ll share the video over social media later, but meanwhile posted some of interior shots at the ultra luxury project on social media the other day, and many of my friends had mixed reactions to the design.

The place is practically sold out, with only a few of the units left, so the market obviously ate it up, but money never equated to taste, so let’s talk about taste. What do you think? Here are some comments unscientifically taken from Facebook feed followed by a photo tour of the model unit:

“Meh… It’s… OK… Looks sort of cheap”

“I love the “All developer units are delivered as a vanilla box.” ie: You’re gonna pay us for an empty, blank space with no interior. Then you’re gonna pay us to allow your construction crews in to finish the interior. Then you’re going to pay us monthly for the privilege of living here. YOU WILL NEVER STOP PAYING US!”

“So many custom wall coverings are nice in theory, but look dated/dingy almost as soon as they’re a couple years old.”

“More beige”

In regards to the shower: “Wow, room for the whole gang.”

“They tried too hard here. Armani go home.”

“Am I looking at a full panel of glass enclosing the kitchen? Is it self-cleaning? Well it’s not like those residents will be using the kitchen anyway…well maybe the staff.”

“It’s sort of cold and ugly”

“You should see the bedrooms.”

“I’d rather not. It’s a bit garish.”

“Garish doesn’t come to mind when I think Armani, but the palette is almost sickly–jaundice even.”

“Upgrade to OurMoney Deluxe. Rosy the Robot is extra…”

“Looks like a dentist’s office.”

“Stunning kitchen!!!”

“Remarkably clinical.”

“I’d need staff to live in a place like that.”

UPDATE: The headline could be read a couple ways. To clarify, the entire project is costing $1 billion to build, not just the sales center, although at $10 million, the sales center is pretty expensive too. And yes $1 billion is an insane, almost unbelievable, amount of money for a single Sunny Isles Beach condo tower.