The high-rise glass condos have remade a Miami-Dade County beach town once known for kitschy motels like the Sahara, Suez and Castaways.
Now, most of the motels from the 1950s are gone. And another tall building may be added to the oceanfront skyline of Sunny Isles Beach.
Developers BH Group, Dezer Development and Related Group have collaborated on plans for an apartment building that would be Sunny Isles Beach’s tallest at 820 feet and 62 stories. With no building height limit in the city, Sunny Isles Beach has become home to the tallest buildings on the barrier island.
But the developers face pushback from people who live on the waterfront, squeezed between Haulover to the south and Golden Beach and the Broward County line to the north.
The proposed Miami Beach club would replace an old apartment building of the same name at 19051 Collins Ave., between Ocean Two Condominium and Residences by Armani Casa.
In January, the developers brought the project before the Sunny Isles Beach City Commission, seeking approval of the plans. But after a contentious hearing that stretched into hours, city commissioners postponed the vote. The commission will review the proposal again at its meeting on Thursday.
Before the January meeting, developer Gil Dezer told the Miami Herald that he expected there would be no problems getting approval from the commission because he had not requested any zoning variances. Dezer said he has already received approval from the Federal Aviation Administration to build an 820-foot building.
While the project won’t technically require exemptions from the city’s zoning code, the proposal makes use of transferable development rights, which allow developers to buy the right to build projects with more units or floor space than city code normally allows. If their plans are approved, the developers would pay more than $26 million for the right to build a tower with additional floor space.
Dezer reiterated Wednesday that he expects the commission to approve the site plan at the meeting. He added that he finds it “disrespectful” that residents of the Armani building, which he developed, are now protesting his next project.
The commission has the authority to decide whether to grant a developer those rights, said Alessandra Stivelman, an attorney representing residents of the Armani building. But this is the last time the plans will be heard by the commission in a public hearing.
Some Sunny Isles Beach residents spoke out against the project during public comment at last month’s meeting.
Joel Simon, who owns a unit in the Armani Building next to the Miami Beach Club, is a music producer who splits his time between New York and South Florida. He grew up staying in the campy motels of Sunny Isles on family vacations.
But now he is at odds with what he sees.
“It’s really about quality of life,” Simon said in an interview with the Miami Herald. “I’m a capitalist… but there comes a time when that kind of mentality, when it compromises the existing residents of an entire city.”
Simon said he is concerned that residents of the proposed building’s 145 units would worsen traffic in Sunny Isles Beach, which has a main thoroughfare, A1A, that is already congested much of the day.
Joe Levine, a cardiologist who also owns a facility in the Armani building, spoke at last month’s meeting about how worse traffic could prevent emergency vehicles from getting to people quickly.
Simon said when he bought an apartment next to an old motel, he knew the place would be redeveloped. He said he doesn’t mind the redevelopment, but thinks the proposed building is too big for the site. The Miami Beach Club would be nearly 200 feet taller than the neighboring Armani building.
“No doubt it’s a beautiful building,” Simon said, “but it’s the wrong building in the wrong place.”
Simon and Levine are concerned about the impact the construction of the Miami Beach Club will have on the surrounding buildings, including themselves. Sunny Isles Beach, which is built on a sandbar island, has had problems with sinking and unstable buildings. Experts warned that drilling a foundation deep enough for such a tall building could cause vibrations that could disturb the foundations of nearby buildings.
READ MORE: Sinking Skyscrapers? As the buildings grew in Sunny Isles, so did the engineering concerns
Levine, who splits his time between New York and South Florida, told the Herald he is also concerned about the environmental impact of the proposed tower, including how it will affect sea turtles that nest on the beach. Lights and shadows from buildings can confuse sea turtle hatchlings as they try to reach the ocean.
Levine encouraged other Sunny Isles Beach residents who want to share their thoughts on the proposed development to attend the commission meeting at 6:30 p.m., Thursday at Sunny Isles Beach City Hall, 18070 Collins Ave.
“There’s going to be six more buildings going up in Sunny Isles because you see the vacant lots,” Levine said. “My argument to the city was you have a chance to change the process. You have a chance to protect people.”