Sunny Isles Beach city commissioners on Thursday night unanimously approved a revised site plan for Chateau Group and Fortune International Group’s newest project, after the developers stripped the hotel component from their two-tower, 56-story development.
The unnamed project, whose working title is Varadero, will now have 490 condominium units plus a restaurant, office space and retail space.
Asked why the hotel component of the site plan was removed, developer Manuel Grosskopf of Chateau Group told The Real Deal following the city commission’s favorable vote: “We are developers of condominiums. We are not hotel guys.”
Grosskopf also said a sales office for the 56-story development at 18801 Collins Avenue is under construction.
City commissioners on November 19 approved the original site plan for the development on Collins Avenue, which then included 431 condo units, 60 hotel rooms and 90 apartment-hotel units.
Eduardo Imery, executive vice president and chief financial officer of Fortune International, told Sunny Isles Beach city commissioners at their November 19 meeting that the developers had planned for the development to carry the brand of a hotel group. “We are planning to bring another hospitality brand to the city,” Imery said. “We hope to do that soon.”
Fortune and Chateau paid $113 million for the 4.7-acre development site in November 2014. At the time, it was occupied by the La Playa de Varadero condo-hotel, whose residences the two developers bought out individually.
The revised site plan for the 56-story unnamed development on Collins Avenue includes a 7,000-square-foot restaurant, 7,000 square feet of office space for a single tenant and 1,800 square feet of retail space.
The project is the latest in a series by Chateau Group and Fortune International in Sunny Isles Beach, including the 52-story Ritz-Carlton Residences, Sunny Isles Beach, which is in the preconstruction phase. Chateau Group is also building Fendi Chateau in Surfside, which is nearing completion.