Nahla Capital moved one step closer to securing approval for tweaks that will allow the developer to increase the size of the proposed Raleigh Miami Beach, a Rosewood-branded luxury condo and hotel project that’s been in the works for years.
Nahla acquired the 3-acre oceanfront assemblage at 1775, 1757 and 1751 Collins Avenue in October for $270 million, taking over from developer Michael Shvo and his partners.
At a Miami Beach Planning Board meeting on Tuesday, the board voted 5 to 1 to recommend approval of comprehensive plan and code amendments that will allow the developer to increase the floor area ratio to 2.5 from 2.0, adding more than 66,000 square feet to the project via two additional floors of the residential tower. Board member Scott Needleman marked the sole no vote.
Nahla is the fifth owner of the Raleigh over the past 15 years, said Nahla’s land use attorney, Alfredo Gonzalez of Greenberg Traurig. The hotel has been closed since 2017, when it was owned by Tommy Hilfiger and his partners.
Genghis Hadi, co-founder and managing principal of New York-based Nahla, said the project will require about $1 billion dollars of investment. The multibillion-dollar private equity firm has spent about $5 million over the past few months, Hadi said.
If the developer secures final approval for the amendments, the square footage would total just over 332,000 square feet. As approved in 2020, the developer can build 84 residential units and 86 hotel rooms, but plans to build 52 condos and fewer than 80 hotel rooms, according to Gonzalez’s presentation. Shvo and his partners, the previous owners, planned 44 condos.
The iconic Art Deco-designed Raleigh, known for its pool, was designed by L. Murray Dixon, and has been gutted alongside the Richmond and South Seas structures. The new project also calls for a private members’ club and a hotel component, originally designed by Peter Marino and Kobi Karp Architecture & Interior Design.
Nahla has kept much of the original team intact, including Gonzalez and Karp. Earlier this year, Nahla hired Compass to lead sales and marketing of the condo project.
With the latest blessing of the planning board, the developer still needs approval from the Miami Beach City Commission and the city’s historic preservation board.
At Tuesday’s meeting, some board members and members of the public expressed concern over the height of the project, which is 200 feet tall or about 17 stories.
Attorney Amanda Quirke Hand, representing the Shelborne hotel, said the Shelborne’s owner Mitchell Cohen doesn’t object to the additional FAR. The height, she said, is “out of scale” and “out of context” with the neighborhood. The Shelborne, a Proper Hospitality hotel, went through a renovation and restoration.
“Every planning decision asks a simple question: Are we protecting the public interest, or are we solving a private problem today?” Cohen asked the board. “I respectfully submit that you’re being asked to solve a private problem.”
Hadi pushed back on that characterization.
“We’re not asking you to make a private investment decision, that is absolutely not the case,” he said. “I’m also asking you not to make a private investment decision about somebody else’s pool being covered for two hours a day for three weeks in the year. … What is appropriate for this neighborhood that has had to look at a building that has been crumbling over the last 10 years, and the number of calls that I’ve received as an owner saying, ‘when the hell is this going to get built?’ It’s time for this to get built.”
The Raleigh is part of a stretch of Collins Avenue that developers have branded “Billionaires’ Beach.” That includes Witkoff and Monroe Capital’s Shore Club Private Collection, the 49-unit Auberge-branded condo and 75-key hotel under construction at 1901 Collins Avenue. The Delano hotel recently reopened following a major redevelopment.
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Nahla’s Raleigh Miami Beach expansion plan heads to city commission vote