“Tragic idea,” Miami Beach Mayor on plans to turn iconic Clevelander Hotel into high-rise

MIAMI BEACH – Developers plan to turn an iconic South Beach hotel into an 18-story tower in Miami Beach.  City commissioners said it’s the first use of Florida’s Live Local Act of 2023, which became law on July 1st. 

The Jesta Group’s planned mixed-use project for The Clevelander and Essex House hotels contains dozens of affordable housing units.  The group applied for a building permit on Tuesday.

Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber is not fond of the idea.

“(It’s a) horrible, horrific, terrible, tragic idea,” Gelber said.

The owners of The Clevelander and Essex House plan to preserve the Art Deco façade on the properties. 

“The project will be compatible with the many buildings in South Beach that are of equal or greater height,” Anthony O’Brien, Senior Managing Director of The Jesta Group, a company based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada said in a statement emailed to CBS News Miami.  “In addition to the reduced height being proposed, there are three key points about this planned project that are worth noting.  First, the historic Clevelander and Essex structures will be fully preserved. The new structure will rise in the current location of the Clevelander annex, which is not historic.  Second, the project will directly address the massive affordable housing crisis in South Florida by ensuring over 40% of the planned 137 units will be offered for rent at affordable housing levels. Third, the project will deliver exactly what the Mayor and City Commission have been trying to do for years, namely, to replace hotel and nightlife businesses with more residential and community-based retail to create a more balanced neighborhood. This transformative project will replace the existing hotel and outdoor live entertainment/5:00 a.m. Clevelander with a residential product and an upscale restaurant. We are confident that this project will be the catalyst for the kind of Ocean Drive that residents and politicians alike have been desiring for over a decade.  We welcome dialogue with community stakeholders regarding our project and look forward to receiving the formal comments of the Planning Department to our application as we move directly to obtaining a building permit.”

Commissioner Alex Fernandez said the move threatens to destroy one of the most photographed areas in South Florida.

“This 18-story building is a slap in the face to our city,” Fernandez said.

Mayor Gelber agrees.

“Nobody should feel like these are people who care about us they don’t,” Mayor Gelber said.

They think that allowing one tower invites a gold rush of developers who would turn Ocean Drive’s two- or three-story skyline into a string of 20- to 30-floor high-rises.

“It’s totally out of character with that area on top of the fact that they’ll have to use public land owned by the taxpayers of Miami Beach to unify two sites,” Fernandez said.

“The owners don’t care about our city,” Mayor Gelber said.  “They don’t live in our city.  They don’t live in our country.  They invested in a property and they want to extract as much as they can.”

Elected officials have little sway in the decision, Fernandez said.  State law allowed the developers to bypass public hearings. But the Jesta Group does need clearance from the city planning department.

While The Clevelander and Essex House’s owners sound optimistic, the mayor is not.

“Frankly, I think would be one of the worst things for our city to lose the postcard of our city: Ocean Drive,” Mayor Gelber said.