The Miami Beach City Commission on June 27 approved a set of ordinances and a development agreement to redevelop the historic Deauville site in North Beach, authorizing a plan that lowers previously proposed tower heights to 300 feet, reduces the number of towers to two and requires a substantial reconstruction of the Deauville pedestal.

The project as approved includes proffered public benefits and capital contributions: a reconstructed and publicly accessible Deauville pedestal, two public beach‑access corridors (including an elevated north access), a temporary public park on the site prior to major construction, a 4,000‑square‑foot Center for Miami Modern Architecture and Resilience open to the public, a minimum set‑aside of public parking (about 150 spaces in the garage), contributions for park improvements and a $7.5 million cultural/affordable‑housing allocation identified for Byron Carlisle or other city priorities.

Why it matters: The Deauville site is a prominent North Beach property that has been vacant and blighted for years. The development agreement ties large private construction to specific public benefits and a partial architectural replication of a mid‑century hotel that many residents identified as culturally important. The pedestal reconstruction is expensive; the developer estimated hard, soft and financing costs for the pedestal reconstruction in the hundreds of millions.

Major elements approved
- Design and scale: The commission approved a project with two towers (northern and southern), capped at a maximum height of 300 feet, with an overall limit of 200 residential units and 140 hotel keys (a minimum of roughly 90–125,000 square feet of hotel area and up to about 625,000–660,000 square feet of residential tower area were discussed in staff presentations). The developer reinterpreted the Deauville tower and proposed to substantially reconstruct the pedestal (the publicly visible ground‑level portions and historic rooms), which staff estimated would cost roughly $215 million to replicate the pedestal component.
- Public benefits: The agreement requires new public beach access corridors, a temporary public open space prior to construction, a publicly accessible reconstructed lobby and the Miami Modern Architecture center, as well as contributions to local parks (triangle pocket park, Parkview entrance and Allison Park dog‑park improvements), a sewer/stormwater infrastructure study, and a planned public‑access parking component.
- Financial and timeline items: The developer agreed to pay outstanding fines previously assessed on the site; staff confirmed receipt of the fines into city accounts. The DA also included market and traffic analyses presented to the commission; staff and the developer said the revised design offered lower sellable residential floor area than earlier conceptual proposals and that setbacks and subterranean parking requirements reduced net saleable space compared with earlier iterations.

What supporters and critics said
Supporters said the project will revive a long‑vacant property, restore a much‑missed element of North Beach’s architectural fabric and provide public access and cultural programming. Eduardo Ruiz of Foster and Partners, the project's design architect, said the team sought to “capture the essence of what the building used to be, but in a way that is clearly contemporary.”

Opponents raised two overarching objections: that the developer would profit substantially from bonus FAR in exchange for a partial replication that some described as limited, and that the city risked rewarding demolition‑by‑neglect. Several commissioners pressed the developer to lower tower height, reduce density and maximize enforceable public benefits; the developer revised the plan to reduce height to 300 feet and to reallocate hotel/residential mix.

Vote and legal notes
The commission approved the comprehensive‑plan and Land Development Regulation amendments and the development agreement (items R5C, R5D, R7B and an amendment to the Deauville settlement agreement) by roll call, 6–0; Vice Mayor Suarez was absent for the vote. City staff noted that certain bonus FAR provisions are conditioned on a finding by the Historic Preservation Board that the reconstruction meets the “substantial reconstruction” standard set in the DA and the LDR amendments.

Ending: The approved package sets a path to restore a prominent North Beach property and deliver several public amenities, but it also commits the city to monitoring a multi‑year construction program and ensuring the developer meets the DA’s delivery, reporting and security provisions.