A slice of historic Art Deco architecture in Miami Beach’s South of Fifth neighborhood is slated for replacement with a 38-story residential tower under a pair of controversial state laws.
Allied Partners wants to develop the project with a hotel, 90 condo units and 60 workforce rental apartments on the site of the Savoy Hotel at 425 Ocean Drive. As city leaders and residents decry the potential loss of a piece of South Beach history and Tallahassee laws that allow for it, state laws tie their hands from stopping the project, WLRN reported.
Under the plans, the Savoy, built in 1937, will be partly preserved, and the second structure on the site, the Arlington, built in 1941, would be demolished entirely.
In an April letter to the city, the developer’s team said the hotel has been closed since it was damaged by Hurricane Irma and remains fenced off and stabilized with shoring, according to real estate website Floridian Development, which first reported on the planned project. The letter also cited the two state laws under which they propose their tower: The Resilience and Safe Structures Act and the Live Local Act.
The resiliency act, passed by state lawmakers in 2024, allows the demolition. It aims to enhance flood safety, and it permits the demolition of some historic buildings if they don’t comply with Federal Emergency Management Agency flood standards. Sponsored by Republican Rep. Bryan Avila, the act strips local governments from stopping demolition of historic structures if they don’t conform to flood standards. That exposes much of Miami Beach, home to stretches known for their collection of low- and mid-rise Art Deco and Miami Modern buildings, as FEMA flood maps designate nearly the entire city as a floodzone.
The Savoy is just outside the Miami Beach Architectural District, a national historic district recognized in 1979, which would have otherwise shielded it under an exemption in the resiliency act.
Preservationists have been fuming.
Meg Lousteau of the Miami Design Preservation League said this outcome was foreseeable and explicitly flagged by her organization in 2024. Historic structures across the South of Fifth neighborhood are now exposed to demolition, she said.
Avila, who was recently selected by Republican gubernatorial nominee Byron Donalds as his lieutenant governor running mate, represents the Hialeah area that’s far from coastal districts, a source for some of the criticism against the legislation. The Donalds and Avila campaign didn’t respond to the publication’s request for comment.
“I love Hialeah, but Hialeah isn’t known for its architecture except for the race track,” Miami Beach resident Ileana Oroza told the publication during a protest in 2023 when the Resiliency act was introduced. “And it’s a Hialeah senator that wants to take all this away? It’s just wrong.”
The Live Local Act, also a controversial legislation, allows for the construction of a 38-story project, which would tower over much of South of Fifth.
The law, first passed in 2023 and tweaked in subsequent years, paves the way for developers to bypass public hearings and votes, and obtain project approvals administratively, though counties and municipalities are largely limited in how much they can push back. The law allows for bigger buildings as long as at least 40 percent of the units are for households earning up to 120 percent of the area median income.
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