Plan to replace Clevelander with housing is already a political football in Miami Beach

When the owners of the Clevelander Hotel and Bar on Ocean Drive announced last week that they plan to replace the popular party spot with a high-end restaurant and 30-story residential building, Miami Beach politicians and candidates for office were quick to label it a disaster.

“Worst idea ever,” said Mayor Dan Gelber, who later posted an image showing how such a development would tower over neighboring Art Deco structures along the famed South Beach street. “Take a look at how entirely out of scale a 30-story building would be.”

Mike Grieco, a former city commissioner and state representative who is running to succeed Gelber, posted a video standing outside the Clevelander, saying the new building would be, “by far, the tallest building anywhere near the entertainment district.”

“It will be casting a shadow so large that it will be a reminder every day to all of us here in Miami Beach how Tallahassee continues to strip away our power to dictate how our architecture is preserved and how we control development,” he said.

Bill Roedy, a former MTV executive also running for mayor, wrote on Facebook that “outsiders” like Montreal-based Jesta Group “should NOT have more influence on our city’s development than those who call it home.”

City Commissioner Steven Meiner, another mayoral candidate, sent an email to residents Monday calling the proposal a “pure publicity stunt” and saying he will “use every lever to fight against over-development and protect our iconic, historic and beautiful city.”

The bombshell proposal is already shaking up the Miami Beach political landscape as voters prepare to elect four new officials in November and consider the future of Ocean Drive, the city’s most famous strip and most fraught political battleground.

On Sunday, residents received a text message accusing another mayoral candidate, former city commissioner Michael Gongora, of “staying silent” on the matter. The message, funded by a political committee called Keeping Citizens Informed, wasn’t accurate — Gongora had previously posted that the 30-story proposal is “too much” for Ocean Drive and that, as mayor, he would “fight to preserve historic districts and stop out of scale development.”

Sasha Tirador, a political consultant who chairs the committee, could not be reached for comment.

Would proposal address city’s concerns?

In some ways, the proposal seems to address concerns Miami Beach politicians have been raising for years. They have decried the all-night rowdiness of Ocean Drive, seeking ways to roll back alcohol sale hours and shut down spring break. In explaining their plan, the Clevelander owners have cited political pressure as a driving factor.

“For the Clevelander, it has become an impossible task to continuously oppose the hundreds of ordinances and statements from the city of Miami Beach that are focused on destroying and shutting down businesses like ours,” the Clevelander said in a statement Monday.

As housing costs skyrocketed during the pandemic, city officials have also said they want to provide more affordable options — something they have largely failed to do over the past decade. The plan by Jesta Group, which owns the Clevelander and adjacent Essex House hotel, would likely designate around 55 of 137 residential units as affordable under Florida’s Live Local Act, passed this year to allow developers to override local zoning laws if 40% of units are priced as affordable to people making up to 120% of the area median income.

READ MORE: Clevelander announces plans to remake Ocean Drive icon into 30-story affordable housing

That would mean studios could rent for around $2,100 — still out of reach for many workers in South Florida’s hospitality industry but relatively affordable for a South Beach high-rise.

The remaining, market-rate units would be condos, the ownership group said last week.

“As stated in the City’s own 12 Point Plan for Ocean Drive, the only way to make meaningful and long lasting changes on Ocean Drive is to significantly adapt the uses on the street,” the Clevelander said in its statement.

“These changes can and should work hand-in-hand with the beautiful and important historic buildings on Ocean Drive. However, as the past 10 years have shown us, an existing zoning framework of allowing only low-scale small buildings on Ocean Drive does not provide the economic basis to accommodate change of uses.”

Some praise the plan

Ricky Arriola, a city commissioner who has become known for his embrace of conservative politics in recent years, was one of a few local politicians who didn’t immediately rebuke the Clevelander plan, which has not yet been formally submitted to the city.

In an interview last week, Arriola said state lawmakers “had to force our hand” due to city zoning laws and historic preservation restrictions that make it difficult to build dense, affordable housing.

“I think you’re going to see more projects like this in the future. I’m not sure that’s a bad thing,” Arriola said.

The city’s regulations limit building heights on Ocean Drive to 50 feet and give a Historic Preservation Board the power to review and reject redevelopments in historic districts. But the Live Local Act says local governments can’t limit an affordable project’s height below the tallest height permitted within one mile of the project or three stories, whichever is higher.

Several condo towers in the nearby South of Fifth neighborhood are more than 400 feet tall.

Republican State Rep. Fabian Basabe, a co-sponsor of the Live Local Act whose district includes Miami Beach, celebrated the Clevelander plan in a statement Monday, pointing to the affordable housing aspect and the fact that the owners plan to maintain the building’s historic facade.

“And so it begins!” Basabe said. “For too long now, OUR Ocean Drive, the pulsing heart of Miami Beach, the street that started it all, has been violated by crowds taking advantage of the access we granted to them in good faith. Today, we begin returning our beautiful city to its people and, precisely, to its workforce.”

The Live Local Act passed with bipartisan support in the Legislature, including a unanimous vote in the Senate and only six representatives opposed in the House. Some Democrats objected to a provision in the bill prohibiting local governments from enacting rent control measures.

Joe Saunders, a former Democratic state representative who has filed to run against Basabe next year, criticized Basabe’s support of the bill after the Clevelander plan was announced, saying the legislation takes “power away from local voters and gives it to corporate developers.”

The online feedback has been mixed. In Facebook groups and Nextdoor posts, many residents have blasted the idea for erasing local history and being out of step with the neighborhood. Meanwhile, in response to a post on X (formerly Twitter) by the Miami Beach Democrats blasting Basabe and calling the Clevelander proposal “grotesque,” more than a dozen people — many seemingly outside of Florida — pushed back.

“So now Dems are anti density and anti affordable housing?” one person wrote. “What are we doing here?”

Cities fight back

Backlash to the Clevelander plan in Miami Beach has echoed local reactions to other proposals under the Live Local Act in South Florida.

In both Doral and Hollywood, officials say they are pumping the brakes on considering developers’ applications under the state law — possibly in violation of the statute — while they sort out its implications and press legislators to clarify or revise the law’s zoning clauses.

Weston took preemptive action after the bill’s passage in March, with the city commission approving a first reading in June of an ordinance that would require a public hearing for all development proposals involving affordable housing.

READ MORE: A new law is supposed to boost affordable housing. South Florida cities are furious

Miami Beach officials are also thinking about how to fight back.

Late Thursday morning, about an hour after the Miami Herald was first to report on the Clevelander proposal, Deputy City Attorney Nick Kallergis emailed City Attorney Rafael Paz and City Planner Thomas Mooney to share an article that Alex Tachmes, a lawyer for the Clevelander, had co-authored about the Live Local Act in May.

Kallergis quoted from a section of the article that notes the bill does not address certain zoning metrics, like floor-area ratio, meaning it’s not clear if developers can override local laws designed to regulate building size.

“The fact that the act does not expressly address some major zoning metrics such as floor area ratio (FAR) will surely be the subject of discussions in the coming months, and we would not be surprised to see the legislature address this in a clarification bill,” wrote Tachmes and Mark Grafton, a fellow attorney at the firm Shutts & Bowen.

Tachmes said Thursday that the Clevelander proposal would exceed the existing floor-area ratio allowed on Ocean Drive, but that he believes it will pass legal muster based on the intent of the state law.

“You can’t comply with FAR [regulations] and do what the act encourages,” he said.