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[bobliocatt]

Related Urbanplanet.org topics: [ South Florida Projects & Construction | South Florida P&C Index ]

Post news articles and general information here about Miami Beach and the other waterfront communities of Miami-Dade County. This thread covers the island communities from South Pointe in Miami Beach up to Bal Harbour, at the Haulover Inlet, (near 10700 block of Collins Avenue).

Communities covered:
Miami Beach
North Bay Village
Key Biscayne
Bal Harbour
Bay Harbor Islands
Fisher Island
Surfside

[Aessotariq]

UP FRONT | SOUTH BEACH
HYATT KEEPS NAME OFF TRENDY HOTEL

The soon-to-open Hotel Victor will have everything cool on South Beach: chilly vodka bar, coed sauna -- even a 'vibe' manager. (Shhh, it's a Hyatt.)

BY DOUGLAS HANKS III
dhanks@herald.com

Hyatt has hired a vibe manager, put a DJ in the dining room, stocked the lobby aquarium with iridescent jellyfish and done just about everything possible to create an ultra-hip hotel in South Beach.

That includes keeping its name off the place.

When the Hotel Victor opens on Ocean Drive later this month, it will be the first Hyatt property not to bear the company name or logo -- anywhere.

''You can see why we're totally deemphasizing Hyatt,'' said Hyatt Vice President Victor Lopez during a recent tour through the Hotel Victor, where guests will see an ice-topped vodka bar when they walk through the lobby. ``If you say I'm going to the Hyatt South Beach, their perception of what they're going to get is totally different from this.''

Hyatt's unusual anti-branding exercise highlights a common anxiety on South Beach: fitting in.

COOL QUOTIENTS

The masses regularly fret over wearing the right pants to get past a doorman. International hotel operators like Hyatt also worry about their cool quotients in one of the country's trendiest vacation destinations.

Ritz-Carlton's South Beach property is the only one in the luxury chain with a disc jockey on the payroll. At the Royal Palm, the new owners plan to swap the current corporate-friendly Crowne Plaza flag for Hard Rock Hotels to reflect South Beach's party-time atmosphere.

And in a destination with one of the country's most famous collection of ''boutique'' hotels -- the term for independent, stylized hotels popularized by Delano owner Ian Schrager -- individuality can trump name recognition.

''A branded boutique hotel is almost like an oxymoron,'' said Douglas Carrillo, head of marketing for Tecton Hospitality, a Miami-based hotel management company.

Hyatt Hotels & Resorts is the first major hotel chain to leave its brand behind for its South Beach debut, industry experts said. The pledge helped Hyatt win the contract to run the 91-room Victor for its owner, Zom, an Orlando-based developer.

Zom Chief Executive Steven Patterson wanted the renovated 1937 hotel to compete with the Tides, Delano and South Beach's other top boutiques. Patterson said he was skeptical a large chain like Hyatt was up to the task.

But he said Hyatt Chairman Nicholas Pritzker lobbied hard for the contract, promising a hotel with Hyatt's management controls and profit targets but still stylish enough to justify top-tier rates on South Beach. Rooms run about $479 per night.

JELLYFISH THEME

Purple and green daybeds designed by French decorator Jacques Garcia dominate the lobby, where the iced vodka bar takes the place of the old reservations desk. The glowing jellyfish tank serves as the main theme, with beaded tentacle tassels appearing on lamps and furniture throughout the building.

Vibe Manager Victoria Prado will supervise the rotation of scented oils wafting through the common areas and the set lists created by the hotel's ''resident'' disc jockeys.

A private elevator cordoned off by curtains will have access to the penthouse suite and the second-floor VIP area, designed with celebrities in mind.

$1,500 CIGARS

Guests will choose from pillow menus, bath menus and a cigar menu with pre-embargo Cuban cigars selling for $1,500 a piece. The 6,000-square-foot basement spa includes a coed steam room, with only tile pillars for privacy.

''It's all about being a lifestyle hotel,'' said General Manager Ilan Segal, the 31-year-old former Tides executive that Hyatt hired to open the Victor.

Lopez, the Hyatt executive, said the company suspended most of its protocols for the Victor.

Victor staff will wear lapel pins instead of name tags; the Victor website doesn't tout Hyatt promotions; and Victor chefs aren't bound by corporate menu standards or vendor rules.

Still, not everyone is convinced a Hyatt hotel can do cool well enough for South Beach.

''I think it's difficult to have a boutique feel when you're getting direction from corporate,'' said Lindsey Harris, general manager of the 137-room Catalina Hotel on Collins Avenue.

``The idea of a boutique [is] it's more personal.''

[Urban_Legend]

That's kinda funny that they're hiding their name.

[Aessotariq]

A follow-up to this article

Posted on Wed, Jan. 12, 2005

Miami Beach gives coral rock house one more chance

BY NICOLE WHITE AND CASEY WOODS
nwhite@herald.com

A historic yet structurally deteriorated coral rock house in the heart of Miami Beach's historic district received a final chance to be saved when city commissioners on Wednesday agreed to spend $75,000 to have an engineer study and test the structure to finally determine if it can be saved.

''This is a building that has been there -- before the city was even created,'' said Mayor David Dermer. ``We have to give it a shot especially in the world of historic preservation where some very unique things can be done to save a building.''

Two of the seven commissioners, Jose Smith and Luis Garcia, disagreed with the decision, saying it was an exercise in futility because several engineering experts have already agreed that the structure would prove difficult to preserve.

The privately owned building at 900 Collins Ave., has been at the center of a debate that has pitted a private developer, the city's building official and the city's preservation community against each other.

In August, the building official declared the structure unsafe, triggering an outcry from preservationists.

In November, the Miami-Dade Unsafe Structures Board gave the city a 30-day reprieve from a demolition order to attempt to find a way to save the home. Then at its Dec. 15 meeting, the board gave the city an additional 30 days.

City officials will go to the Jan. 19 meeting and present the plan approved by commission, and the board will either grant more time or issue a demolition order.

Carter McDowell, the attorney representing the building's owner Ivor Rose, told the commissioners that the city has unfairly held his client in limbo for months even though he has been willing to build a replica of the structure.

Commissioner Saul Gross said he believes Rose bought the structure knowing full well he had no intention of preserving it. He insisted that the study should be done.

Link to article

[Brickell]

Allison Island DEVELOPMENT: New Urban Meets Modern in South

Edited by Brickell, 17 January 2005 - 06:53 PM.

[Urban_Legend]

^I've seen pics of Aqua, and it's a really neat development.  Sometimes, towers get boring, and mid-rises are quite interesting.

[Aessotariq]

Posted on Wed, Jan. 19, 2005

KEY BISCAYNE
Aging Sonesta hotel to be rebuilt

Finding itself not spiffy enough to compete for South Florida's increasingly discriminating tourists, the Sonesta Beach Resort will be demolished and rebuilt as a five-star property.

BY DOUGLAS HANKS III
dhanks@herald.com

Struggling with an aging property and glitzier competition, the 36-year-old Sonesta Beach Resort on Key Biscayne will be torn down and replaced with a hotel charging five-star rates, owner Sonesta International Hotels announced Tuesday.

The $300 million development project will be financed by advanced sales of the rooms as condo-hotel units, a strategy fueling much of the expansion of South Florida's hotel stock. Miami-based developer Fortune International will contribute $60 million to join Sonesta in building the hotel, slated to open in 2008 after two years of construction.

The 294-room oceanfront Sonesta has lost money since the 2001 terrorist attacks battered South Florida's tourism industry, just as a new crop of luxury hotels opened in the Miami area and peeled away the Sonesta's big-spending guests.

With a new Ritz-Carlton three minutes away and a Four Seasons across the Rickenbacker Causeway on Brickell Avenue, Sonesta decided it couldn't compete without the spacious rooms and modern amenities that come with building a hotel from scratch, company Chairman Roger Sonnabend said.

''The Ritz is clearly superior to us. Their rooms are larger, their bathrooms are new,'' he said of the 402-room Ritz-Carlton that opened less than a mile away in 2001. ``In 1969, we were tops. But a hotel of this age [can't compete] with the Ritz, the Four Seasons.''

HOTEL/CONDO TREND

The hotel will stay open until its demolition slated for the second half of 2006. The venture promises to add another contender to Miami-Dade County's increasingly crowded collection of ultra-luxury hotels, a category created in 2000 when the Mandarin Oriental opened on Miami's Brickell Key.

And it comes as other aging South Florida icons to vacations past are being gutted or demolished in pursuit of more affluent hotel guests.

Fort Lauderdale's Yankee Clipper of Where the Boys Are fame is pursuing a $35 million to $50 million facelift, and wrecking balls are supposed to be bashing in part of the former Americana Hotel (now the Sheraton Bal Harbour) as part of a major upgrade. Downtown Miami's Dupont Plaza hotel is in rubble to make way for a planned luxury hotel and condominium tower, and a Holiday Inn at 22 Street in Miami Beach will be demolished to make way for a swanky W resort.

The Sonesta Beach Resort underwent significant renovations after Hurricane Andrew battered Key Biscayne in 1992, forcing the hotel to close for 13 months. But the property still seemed dated at the start of the decade, and Sonesta spent $11 million on renovations in 2000 for a new spa, bathroom upgrades and lobby improvements.

''We've spent a great deal of money on this hotel in the last few years and always intended to keep the hotel in outstanding condition to be able to compete effectively with other hotels,'' Sonnabend said.

ECONOMIC SETBACKS

Prime oceanfront in a lush and exclusive island setting wasn't enough to overcome a declining economy and the rise of rate discounts brought by online travel agencies like hotels.com and Orbitz, he said.

The publicly traded company has posted losses each year since 2001 in the midst of an industrywide downturn. Though 2003 saw Sonesta's Key Biscayne resort post $26 million in revenue, Sonnabend said it lost money every year since 2001.

''After 9/11, it became a very serious situation,'' he said.

Sonesta used its Key Biscayne property to secure a $30 million loan in 2000 to fund new hotel ventures, including ones in Coconut Grove and Sunny Isles Beach. The Boston-based company negotiated a new loan structure in 2003 to delay interest payments, at a time when Sonnabend said its Key Biscayne and Cambridge, Mass., hotel were struggling with anemic rates and occupancy levels.

Sonesta will not contribute cash in the Key Biscayne condo-hotel venture, only the 11-acre site at 350 Ocean Dr.

Fortune will pay $30 million upfront and assume responsibility for the Key Biscayne hotel's $30 million mortgage, Sonnabend said. He said selling the planned 350 condo-hotel units will generate more than $650 million in revenue. The project should cost about $300 million to develop, he said, not counting the value of Sonesta's land.

Fortune and Sonesta will be equal partners in the real estate venture, while Sonesta will own a 70 percent stake in the new hotel, he said. Fortune will own the other 30 percent.

CHANGE IN PLANS

As recently as last month, Sonnabend said, Sonesta had planned a much more modest venture: a condominium complex on top of where some tennis courts now stand. But that plan was abandoned in talks with Fortune over the condo-hotel option.

'I said, `You have the best land in Miami,' '' said Fortune President Edgardo Defortuna. ' `You have the opportunity to a do lot more than a few dozen condos on the tennis courts.' ''

Zoning law would allow a 15-story building to replace the current seven-story structure, Defortuna said. Sonesta and Fortune have not drawn up plans for the new hotel, and Key Biscayne would need to approve the new design, he said.

Link to article

[Aessotariq]

Some South Beach pics featuring buildings with decorative lighting...

MacLee Express -- it's a local startup that competes with Kinko's:


Parking garage with retail stores; the garage is covered by this animated lighting scheme:













Fifth Street and Washington Avenue:

[Brickell]

More on Aqua...

http://www.theslatin...me=0119aqua.txt

CHILLY DESIGN, HOT AQUA
Peter Slatin

Aqua, the new, 151-dwelling, 8.5-acre secure community on Alison Island in North Miami Beach has taken shape. Its first residents, a gay couple, have moved into the complex’s anchor building, a former hospital where Aqua developer Craig Robins was born. Although Robins won’t be handing over the keys to the homeowners’ association until January 1, 2006, the project’s success is assured: 96 of its 101 apartments, in buildings designed by architects such as Walter Chatham, Alison Spear, and Alexander Gorlin, have been sold; prices for these begin at around $700,000 and rise to more than $2 million. On a similarly successful track, more than 30 of the 46 single-family homes, designed by other name-branders such as Hariri & Hariri and Duany Plater-Zyberk (DPZ), have been sold at prices that begin above $2 million. Robins and his backers are well on their way to a windfall here.

DPZ master-planned the community, whose security-conscious, wealthy inhabitants are likely to be mostly part-timers; they will have to go off-island for anything other than what the one small high-end convenience/gourmet retailer on-site can provide.

Given the high barrier to entry for residents, and an even higher one for non-residents, It is already clear that Aqua will be a New Urbanist triumph of a new magnitude, at least design-wise. Dense, high- and low-rise, austere, and inward-looking, Aqua takes itself very seriously. Don’t expect to see any McMansion snap-ons here, for example. Even the landscaping is minimal and emphasizes the Florida flatness it is given: there’s no attempt to make this a kinder, gentler place. Its scale of three-story homes juxtaposed against taller (but not overbearing) apartment buildings streamlined with late-model Miami Modern undertones and just enough negative space is a welcome contrast to the jumble of oversized, slap-dash developer towers that literally throw concrete-box living at prospective buyers as they line Collins Avenue just to the east, across a canal.

What will establish Aqua’s place in the design firmament of Miami Beach-and master-planned resort communities in general-is the absolute thoroughness of its planning and execution, in conjunction with a devotion to design excellence that’s evident at every turn. This is a developer who kept himself-or perhaps more to the point, his architects, marketing team, and sales agents-in check. Aqua’s “amenity package” is not about resort living, despite its two community swimming pools and the individual, nontransferable docks that belong to each waterside unit. It’s about what the possession of Design conveys to, and about, the resident/patron. There’s no golf course here – but who needs one when your community has the only extant Richard Tuttle mosaic mural? One can just envision this community gathering to gaze at its huge Tuttle, called “Splash,” before an evening Laurie Anderson concert in the tiny amphitheater planned for the community’s central green space.

Is it too much? For those who truly do care about buying into great urban placemaking, there is an alternative scenario that illustrates what can happen when developers dumb down a vision to embrace what seems a more easily attainable goal: quick, massive sales. What are we talking about? LA’s bedeviled Playa Vista: See "Playa Pique," 11 10 04. There, a battle royal raged for decades over design, money and the future of this 1,000-acre waterfront land.

Elsewhere in Miami Beach, design sings an easy, breezy background tune that fades and swells block by block. At Aqua, however, there's little doubt that the design drives the dollars that future residents are pouring into the mix. Aqua’s insistent song plays in surround sound only for those who come to listen.

That’s if there is anyone home. This very beautiful, very small cityscape will seem empty when its residents aren’t home, which will be often. In that well-guarded emptiness lies the basic hole in this perfected placemaking. The effort to recapture and revivify the landscape of community is a tough gig for a place that is only part time.

In a beautifully planned but depopulated Wisteria Lane, desparate housewives may want to venture back to Ocean Drive to loosen up.

[Urban_Legend]

Those citrus and mango groves nestled into the community are really interesting.  What a cool design, even for its "gated-ness".

[Brickell]

I didn't even notice those.  Interesting indeed.

[Aessotariq]

Posted on Thu, Jan. 20, 2005

Turnberry to buy Fontainebleau hotel

BY DOUGLAS HANKS III
dhanks@herald.com

Turnberry Associates will buy the Fontainebleau hotel on Miami Beach, ending owner Stephen Muss' three decades at the iconic resort, the developer announced Thursday.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Turnberry head Jeffrey Soffer said the Aventura-based developer plans $150 million in renovations to the 1954 building. Designed by Morris Lapidus, the 920-room hotel is showing its age, hurting the Fontainebleau's efforts to charge top rates.

The deal marks Turnberry had been Muss' partner in a major upgrade of the Fontainebleau, building a 36-story condo-hotel tower next door with a third tower on the way. Turnberry head Jeffrey Soffer said he does not plan to convert any of the rooms in the old buildings into condo-hotel units.

Soffer said he plans on boosting the Fontainebleau's rates and occupancy by bringing in new restaurant operators, night-time entertainment and jazzing up the bar scene, possibly with a club.

''I want to make it a Vegas-style hotel,'' Soffer said this morning.

The deal, set to close in March, means the end of Muss' tenure at the head of the Fontainebleau. Though the hotel thrived in the 1950s and '60s as a symbol of the Rat-Pack glamour of good times that defined Miami Beach in the postwar era, it fell into hard times with the rest of the tourist market in the 1970s.

''We felt it was time to bring in a more aggressive organization that was really on the cutting edge,'' Muss said.

He bought it out of bankruptcy in 1978 and renovated it. The Fontainebleau's revival is credited with helping spark Miami Beach's rebirth as a popular vacation destination.

Muss, 76, lives at the hotel, and his daughter, Melanie, is a senior executive there. Soffer said Muss is selling his full stake in the hotel, and Melanie Muss will remain as an executive.

Link to article

[Brickell]

funny that Vegas was based in part by Miami Beach hotels like the Fontainebleau, and now they want to change it to a Vegas type hotel...


interesting shots Tivo.  It's been too long since I've been to the Beach at night.  That's all new since I've been there last.

Edited by Brickell, 20 January 2005 - 07:16 PM.

[streetscaper]

those were some great pics tivo...I love those 5th ave buildings...it makes a great entrance to the City of Miami Beach at night, with the neon lights and the vibrancy of people in the streets all dressed up for a night out on the town...Great!

[Aessotariq]

brickell said:

funny that Vegas was based in part by Miami Beach hotels like the Fontainebleau, and now they want to change it to a Vegas type hotel...

funny you should mention that... on top of that, Turnberry is building Miami Beach-style high rise condos in Las Vegas...

Edited by tivo, 20 January 2005 - 07:30 PM.

[Aessotariq]

thanks, street... I'm still waiting on a Jumbotron to be installed somewhere, either Downtown or South Beach.

[streetscaper]

I <3 South Beach

Edited by streetscaper, 20 January 2005 - 08:16 PM.

[Brickell]

They had talked about installing a jumbotron in coconut grove a couple of years ago.

[streetscaper]

^^that would be really cool...SOO cool

[Aessotariq]

Posted on Thu, Jan. 20, 2005

MIAMI BEACH
Waterfront parcel to be auctioned Feb. 18

The city will auction off a piece of waterfront property next month, with proceeds to help pay for renovation of the Normandy Shores Golf Course.

BY CASEY WOODS
cwoods@herald.com

Miami Beach has scheduled the auction of a piece of city-owned waterfront property in Normandy Shores.

Voters approved the sale of the 30-acre lot, located at 2620 Biarritz Dr., in a referendum in March.

Proceeds from the sale, to take place Feb. 18, will help pay for the approximately $4 million renovation of the Normandy Shores Golf Course. The renovation, which will take a year to complete, is now in the planning phase.

''I think there's going to be a feeding frenzy for this property, and I think it's going to call attention to the fact that this is the last reasonably affordable waterfront neighborhood in the city,'' Commissioner Jose Smith said. ``Plus, it will give the city the necessary funding to complete the golf course renovation, which is probably the single-most-important project in Normandy Isle.''

The property -- and two neighboring city-owned lots -- was originally scheduled to be sold in 1990. The other two properties were sold, but the buyer for 2620 Biarritz backed out after bidding. For 15 years, it has sat vacant.

In a referendum several years ago, voters approved a measure requiring all sales of city-owned waterfront property be approved in a referendum.

According to city administrators, appraisals commissioned by the city show the property's value has increased significantly in just the last year. An April analysis pegged its price at $870,000, while a more recent appraisal valued it at $1.25 million.

The company handling the sale, Fisher Auction, has scheduled the auction to coincide with the Miami International Boat Show, which will take place Feb. 17-21.

''We thought that if people are coming into town to go ahead and buy a million dollar boat, maybe they'll need a waterfront property where they can park it,'' said Joe Damien, the asset manager for the city.

The sale is subject to final approval by the City Commission, Damien said.

Information on the property is available at www.fisherauction.com, or by calling 800-331-6620.

Link to article