Car Condos? This New Auto Club Creates Residences for Your Prized Collection
Parallel to the explosive growth of car collecting, the demand for places to store these precious totems increases accordingly. In most major cities, such needs are being met by a burgeoning industry of storage options—from brutalist stacked parking spots to white-glove membership enclaves that more resemble a Soho Club than a Sunday morning Cars and Coffee outing.
It’s a concept that has been around for some time now, with offerings like the Collection Suites in Doral, Fla., and new ones opening across the United States. One of the latest is the Hangar in Riviera Beach, Fla. Scott Cunningham, the Hangar Group’s founder and CEO, doesn’t just want to rent you a parking spot, he prefers to sell you a permanent home for your air-cooled Porsche 964 Turbo. Consider it a gated community for Prancing Horses and Raging Bulls.
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As for the name? “We were in a friend’s hangar in Florida, watching the sunset, and he didn’t just have planes—he also had cars, motorcycles, and memorabilia on the walls, and couches and a bar and a TV,” recalls Cunningham in describing the aha moment that eventually lead to his passion project.
At the time, Cunningham was storing his collection in an industrial warehouse, swapping cars out weekly to flog at the nearby racetrack club. Inevitably, the rumblings of naturally aspirated V-12’s throughout the warehouse neighborhood would bring unwanted attention. “I thought . . . how can I expect privacy? I’m in an industrial park,” says Cunningham. “The cool thing about the hangar was, if somebody did walk by, you knew they’re a fellow plane owner—you’d have to be granted access to the airport, so that felt good.”
Cunningham bought a tract of land in Riviera Beach and built 41 individual units to store not just cars but motorcycles, art, wine, and other collectibles. It sold out within a year. As with similar enterprises executing the same model, the greatest luxury the Hangar offers is the empty canvas of ownership to fuel creativity. Since suites are owned and not rented, members can personalize them to their most extravagant whims. “We’ve got people who spent well over a million dollars on a 2,000-square-foot place, just building it out; with $100,000 wine cellars for a million-dollar collection—and that’s before the first piece of memorabilia or car goes inside.”
Now Cunningham is building a second Hangar that will be five times the size of the first, located near Palm Beach International Airport, only a stone’s throw from the island of Palm Beach. The new Hangar West Palm Beach concept has already sold out 70 percent of its units before vertical construction has even begun.
Compared to the inaugural Hangar, the new space elevates the private club experience by adding a host of amenities that include golf and driving simulators, 150-inch TVs, a home theater and billiard room, and boardrooms. There will also be a catering kitchen, onsite concierge, and 24/7 live-monitored security. And cigar aficionados will be able to hang on the rooftop’s sunset deck, happily watching private jets take off while they puff Arturo Fuentes. “We’re even going to do kind of a speakeasy type of thing,” notes Cunningham, although he still wants to keep details on those plans hush-hush.
The Hangar West Palm Beach opens at the end of next summer, with 1,828-square-foot spaces (including 450-square-foot mezzanines) starting at $799,000. The largest will be 3,736 square feet (with an 856-square-foot mezzanine), which sells for $1.6 million. Plans to expand to other key markets are also underway, including locations in Boca Raton, Miami, and the Hamptons.
Click here for more photos of the Hangar in Photos.
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