Jurerê Internacional

History

Grupo Habitasuli, founded in 1967 and headquartered in Porto Alegre, opened Jurerê Internacional on 6 November 1980. The Masterplan, presented to the city in the late 1970s by architect Sérgio Sclovskyi and publicly championed by the group’s founder, businessman, lawyer and journalist Péricles de Freitas Druck, brought concepts that most of the Brazilian coast still does not practise almost fifty years later.

Three decisions defined the place. The first: eliminating the “Avenida Atlântica” — instead of a road hugging the sand, the project opened a setback between the beach and the start of the residential blocks and occupied it with the Passeio dos Namorados, paved with Portuguese cobblestones. The second: wall-less houses, an absolute novelty at the time. The third, the most improbable: the group itself took on the construction of the neighbourhood’s Water and Sewage System (SAE), because the state utility declared it had no way to serve such a distant region. The SAE became a benchmark for seaside neighbourhoods in Brazil and beyond.

The neighbourhood is now on its fourth Masterplan since opening. The current one, under the Jurerê in_ brand, projects expansion through 2050 on five fronts — Parque Central, the expansion of Jurerê Open, new cycle paths, new residential and commercial centralities, and a preservation area — with implementation planned through 2035.

• Concept: the seaside neighbourhood planned as a complete system — urban design, architecture, sanitation and environmental management decided together, before the first house.
• Curiosities: in 1994, Jurerê OPEN, Santa Catarina’s first open-air shopping centre, opened there. In 2009, the beach earned Latin America’s first Blue Flag and, that same year, the New York Times called Jurerê Internacional “The Place To Be”. Also as part of the original plan, the neighbourhood gained two five-star hotels, Il Campanario and Jurerê Beach Village. For the 45th anniversary, marked in November 2025, the group announced a book on the neighbourhood’s history, written by journalist Moacir Pereira.

Architecture and aesthetics

Jurerê’s design lies in what it decided not to build. With no seafront avenue, the shore belongs to those on foot: the Passeio dos Namorados, in Portuguese cobblestone, is the neighbourhood’s public backbone and the reason the beach does not have, on this side, the wall of cars and towers that defines almost every Brazilian seaside resort. With no walls, the houses open onto the street and the front gardens form a continuous green strip — the effect is of a garden suburb, not a gated condominium.

The scale is low and the architecture, free within the plan’s rules, ranges from 1980s beach houses to contemporary glass-and-timber residences. What unifies it is the layout, the height limit and the greenery. The expansion plan under way intensifies this approach: Parque Central, delivered in March 2026, has 150,000 square metres of leisure and contemplation areas at the heart of the neighbourhood, and the PURO Brasil Design Living residential and commercial project, in Jurerê Open, had its gardens designed by the landscape practice Burle Marxi, with colours, patterns and native Brazilian vegetation.

Aesthetics and scarcity

Technical specifications

• Towers and units: not a tower nor a gated subdivision. It is a low-scale planned neighbourhood, with single-family houses, small-scale buildings, hospitality, retail and services integrated into the plan.
• Areas: varied, set by each block’s occupation rules — there is no single typology.
• Parking spaces: according to each residence’s or building’s design.
• Structural highlights: its own Water and Sewage System (SAE), built and operated by the developer · Passeio dos Namorados, in Portuguese cobblestone, between the beach and the first blocks · wall-less house design · Parque Central of 150,000 m², delivered in March 2026 · Jurerê Sports Center (JUSC), one of the Island’s largest sports centres · Jurerê OPEN, Santa Catarina’s first open-air shopping centre (1994) · two five-star hotels · Blue Flag beach.
• Registry and parameters: planned neighbourhood in the north of Ilha de Santa Catarina, municipality of Florianópolisi, established from 6 November 1980 by Grupo Habitasuli · “Jurerê Internacional” is an official Post Office neighbourhood (Avenida dos Búzios, postcode 88053-300 and 88053-301) · four successive Masterplans since 1980, the current one under the Jurerê in_ brand, with a horizon to 2050 and implementation planned through 2035 · the expansion plan foresees intervention on 10.7% of the group’s land available for real-estate expansion, with around 324 hectares of preserved and green areas · registry jurisdiction of Florianópolis.

Leisure and facilities

• Praia de Jurerê, with a Blue Flag since 2009
• Passeio dos Namorados, in Portuguese cobblestone, along the shore
• Jurerê OPEN — open-air shopping centre (1994), with shops, a food court, stages, markets and the Plataforma Lounge
• Jurerê Sports Center (JUSC) — host venue for a leg of the WTA tennis circuit and the Troféu José Finkel swimming event
• Parque Central, with 150,000 m² of leisure and contemplation areas
• Internationally recognised beach clubs
• Five-star hotels Il Campanario and Jurerê Beach Village
• Cycle paths integrated into the neighbourhood plan
• Ecumenical temple

Location and surroundings

Points of interest · distances in metres

Florianópolis: the address

Florianópolisi is not a neighbourhood: it is the capital of Santa Catarina, half island and half mainland, and its value map has a clear north. The Island’s northern region — Jurerê, Canasvieiras, Praia Brava, Ponta das Canas — concentrates the calm sea, urban infrastructure and the country’s most established high-end beach living; the east and south hold the surf beaches and Lagoa da Conceição. Jurerê Internacional is the chapter that organised this north, and its history, in the group’s own words, “merges with the very history of Florianópolis.” At the turn of the 2010s, the city gained a second layer of demand: the technology hub brought very high-income permanent residents who previously only came for the season — and the local property market stopped being seasonal.