FORT LAUDERDALE — A tanned and toned crowd sipping on mocktails crowded around an oversized miniature replica of The St. Regis Resort & Residences hotel and luxury condo towers coming to Bahia Mar.

They snapped photos. They recorded video. They oohed and aahed.

The crowd, mostly real estate agents and potential buyers, flocked to the St. Regis sales gallery Tuesday to hear from a panel of experts sharing their insights on how the $2 billion project will impact Fort Lauderdale.

Dean Trantalis, mayor of Fort Lauderdale; Anthony Cordo, executive vice president of Visit Lauderdale, the county’s tourism promotion arm; and Craig Studnicky, co-founder and CEO of RelatedISG Realty, made up the trio of panelists. Lifestyle and travel journalist Angela Caraway-Carlton took on the role of moderator.

“This project is truly gorgeous,” she said in kicking off the panel discussion. “What’s going to happen here is a $2 billion transformation . This is going to be a 40-acre tropical sanctuary. There’s also going to be a megayacht marina, restaurants, dining and retail. This is going to be a project dripping in luxury.”

The five-star resort and four luxury condo towers will rise on city-owned Bahia Mar, home of the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show. The units are selling for $3 million all the way up to $25 million.

Developer Jimmy Tate , whose company owns the 100-year lease on Bahia Mar, teamed up with the Related Group to build the project.

The hotel and two condo towers, part of the first phase, are expected to break ground in the summer of 2026.

“The goal is to be 45% to 50% pre-sold,” Tate told the South Florida Sun Sentinel. “We expect to be there by the first quarter of 2026. So we’ll likely break ground next summer.”

The remaining two condo towers, part of the second phase, will break ground later based on market conditions, Tate said.

Trantalis has called the project a game-changer for the tourist town once known as a Spring Break destination.

“When we talk about St. Regis, we’re really talking about the future of Fort Lauderdale,” Trantalis said Tuesday during the panel discussion. “Fort Lauderdale has for years had this beautiful harbor called Bahia Mar. And yet it seemed to be lacking in some way. When you used to come here, you’d see this vast wasteland of asphalt. Working with the Tate family and Related Group and all the partners involved with this project, we downsized the project significantly but we upgraded it significantly.”

Bahia Mar is just one property undergoing a dramatic transformation on the barrier island.

The nearby Las Olas Marina, a $60 million project in the works for eight years, opened in December. The 88-slip marina at 151 Las Olas Circle features floating concrete docks designed for some of the globe’s biggest yachts.

Then there’s Las Olas Ocean, a massive project that would take up three blocks at Las Olas and A1A. The developer plans to build 29-story twin condo towers with 500 units; a 373-room hotel; upscale shops and restaurants; and a 1,323-space parking garage.

A major $218 million makeover of the International Swimming Hall of Fame complex is also on the way, with plans for an aquarium, rooftop restaurant and new museum. The project is meant to spruce up the city-owned peninsula south of Las Olas with a modern building on the east side and a six-story building on the west overlooking the Intracoastal.

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If you want to buy a place at the nearby St. Regis, you’ll need deep pockets.

“Our buyers are from South Beach and Newport, California,” said Daniel Teixeira, vice president of sales for The St. Regis Residences Bahia Mar. “We have yachters from Sarasota and Naples. And we’re seeing a lot of Chicago buyers coming to South Florida. We’re selling very briskly. And prices are going to start going up. So we are in very good shape.”

The condos are selling for $5 million to $25 million for the penthouse units, Teixeira said. The hotel residences are selling for $3 million to $25 million.

The four St. Regis condo towers will each have 80 units, for a total of 320.

The tower facing the Intracoastal will include 79 furnished residences on floors 14 to 22 that can be purchased, Teixeira said.

The same tower will include 197 hotel rooms located on floors 3 through 12. The rooms will likely go for $1,000 a night and up, Teixeira said.

The St. Regis property is just one example of a luxury project that’s taking things to the next level, Cordo said.

Every luxury hotel along the beach is competing for those higher-end markets, he said. And the St. Regis will add that many more high-end rooms.

“The project is high-end luxury,” Cordo said. “But we can’t ignore what makes Fort Lauderdale and Broward County genuine. There are restaurants nearby owned by first-generation immigrants. There are little shops owned by mom and pops. You can have a genuine experience when you live in a place like this, just by walking out your front door. And you don’t get that everywhere.”

Five years ago, the pandemic sent people by the hundreds to Fort Lauderdale, Trantalis said. And they’re still coming.

“More and more people are coming to Fort Lauderdale, especially young people,” he said. “We’re not Miami and we don’t want to be Miami. We’re not Palm Beach and we don’t want to be Palm Beach. We have created our own brand. There’s a place for everybody in Fort Lauderdale.”

Studnicky touted the Bahia Mar property as “the future Monaco” of America.

“This is a never-before, never-again piece of real estate,” he said. “There’s a lot of oceanfront properties that get developed. Some of them are teardowns of old buildings that get replaced by gleaming beautiful new architectural wonders. But you’re never going to get a Bahia Mar ever again.”

Most luxury condo towers in Miami Beach only offer 150 feet to 350 feet of beach, Studnicky said. The St. Regis resort will feature nearly half a mile of beachfront, or 2,000 linear feet to be exact.

“It’s a big deal,” Studnicky said. “I know the value of beach. It is gold. It is pure gold.”