Miami Beach looks to North Beach as its next development frontier

From the April issue: It’s record-setting time on Miami Beach. Hedge fund honchos and Russian billionaires are paying an average of $3,130 per square foot for new condominiums at the Faena House on Collins Avenue in South Beach. Just four blocks down the street at the posh Residences at the Miami Beach Edition, buyers can pay an average of $3,020 per square foot for a unit in the 18-story tower.

A couple of miles away, the GLASS condo tower at 120 Ocean Drive has sold out. All of its 10 super-luxury units were gone in a flash for an average price of about $2,300 per square foot. And just to the north at the 321 Ocean project, buyers are getting a relative bargain, paying about $1,720 per square foot for oceanfront units. 

But while the South Beach and Mid-Beach neighborhoods are sizzling with new condo and hotel projects seemingly going up overnight, there’s one part of the resort city that has been left out of the boom: North Beach, the faded home to scores of low-rise Miami Modern buildings, quiet gated single-family properties and the dowdy main drag of 71st Street, where you can’t find a Starbucks. North Beach, which stretches from 63rd Street to 87th Street and westward to Biscayne Bay, is a relic of a less affluent time while South Beach and Mid-Beach have exploded in recent years. [more]