At 93, vodka on the rocks in hand, Don Soffer sits down to retrace how a kid from a tiny steel town outside Pittsburgh ended up building one of the most valuable pieces of land in South Florida. He talks about growing up above his family’s grocery store, watching refugees from Europe sleep in his bed while they got back on their feet, and learning retail the old fashioned way, stocking shelves and hauling goods before supermarkets even existed. From there he walks through football at Brandeis, turning down the NFL, the army, and how a two–level enclosed mall that nobody believed in became his first major breakthrough.
The heart of the episode is Aventura. Don explains how his father found 800 acres of swamp, why retirees were always going to flock to Florida, and how a flat “no” from the state’s top environmental regulator led him to camp outside the governor’s office with a scale model and a very big promise. He shares how the golf course came first, how the mall became the engine that keeps paying everyone’s salary, and what it took to survive sky–high interest rates, bad cycles, and sceptical luxury brands who eventually realised they were doing more business in Aventura than in the Design District.
Of course, this is Don, so the stories do not stop at zoning and cap rates. Between landing a plane on a beach and accidentally leaving it in two feet of water, long nights at the Playboy Mansion, chaotic fishing trips and golf bets with James Caan, and naming a cigarette boat “Be Right Back”, you get the full picture of a developer who worked hard, played harder, and still shows up to the office when he feels like it. Equal parts history lesson, war story and locker-room humour, this episode is a reminder that cities are built by people with stubborn instincts and a very high tolerance for risk.
Guest Bio
Donald Soffer is the developer behind Aventura, Florida, and the founder of Turnberry Associates. Born in 1932 in Duquesne, a working-class steel town outside Pittsburgh, he grew up in a family of grocers and early supermarket owners before heading to Brandeis University on a football scholarship and later serving in the US Army. After returning home, he moved into property, pioneering one of the first modern enclosed two-level shopping centres when established developers passed on the opportunity. Now in his nineties, he has passed much of the day-to-day business to his children, but remains the family’s “managing partner in spirit”, still telling stories, fishing, travelling with his wife and occasionally stirring the pot from his office.
Listen to the episode
The episode is live now. You can listen here: