For the owner who will spend the winter on Biscayne Bay and the rest of the year somewhere else, and wants a home that is easy to leave and easy to come back to.
This page explains. Whether the building suits you is a separate conversation. Contact the desk at Miami Dossier for the current position on any building we cover.
Anantara Residences Miami is the easiest to leave: a hotel shares the tower, so staff are on site all year, and the resort residences of one and two bedrooms are built at pied-à-terre scale, From $1,800,000. Villa Miami gives the seasonal owner a half or full floor on the bay with an on-site estate manager and private vaults, From $5,750,000. 619 Brickell by Nobu sits a few minutes south on the Brickell waterfront, with water views from every living room and a resident-only wellness floor, From $2,950,000.
The same five questions, put to each building from the developers' published material:
Anantara Residences Miami. Price point: From $1,800,000. Delivery: no date on file. Unit mix: about 50 hotel suites, about 120 resort residences of one and two bedrooms, and about 100 condominium residences of three to six bedrooms on quarter, half and full floors, over 50 stories. Position: Edgewater, on the bay, on a two-acre site where the Design District, Wynwood, Midtown and the causeway to the beach meet. Operator: Anantara Hotels, Resorts and Spas, part of Minor Hotels, in the brand's first American residences.
Villa Miami. Price point: From $5,750,000. Delivery: no date on file. Unit mix: about 70 homes over 55 floors, every one a half floor (Villa Mezzo, three to four bedrooms, about 2,940 to 2,970 square feet) or a full floor (Villa Piano, four to five bedrooms, about 5,900 to 5,960 square feet), with two terraces each. Position: 700 NE 29th Street, East Edgewater, bay frontage on two sides, the Baywalk at the door. Operator: Villa, under licence from Major Food Group, which programs and services the building.
619 Brickell by Nobu. Price point: From $2,950,000. Delivery: no date on file. Unit mix: about 300 homes across 75 stories, one to five bedrooms, from about 1,160 square feet. Position: 619 Brickell Avenue, on the water, with water views from every living room and primary bedroom. Operator: Nobu, under licence to the developer, 13th Floor Investments and Key International.
The question a seasonal owner should ask first. A building that empties in summer is a building where the lobby is quiet, the restaurant keeps shorter hours and the staff are fewer.
Anantara is the exception by design. The tower holds about 50 hotel suites alongside the residences, so the hospitality staff, the Vitality Center and the gardens run for guests all year, not only for owners in season. The owner who arrives in December finds the building awake. The trade is that hotel guests share the address; ask which pools, lifts and entrances are residents-only. Read what the Anantara brand does.
Villa Miami publishes an on-site estate manager and a curator, and Major Food Group runs the club, the kitchens and the pool vessel on the bay. The fact sheet is careful: the restaurant, the dock and the helipad sit in commercial components sold separately, and their operation is not guaranteed. A seasonal owner should price the tower and treat those three as a hope. Read Villa Miami: what to know before you buy.
619 Brickell by Nobu is a residential tower of about 300 homes; the resident Nobu cafe and the Wellness and Longevity floor are for owners. Ask how the wellness floor is staffed in the summer months. Read Nobu's lock-and-leave terms.
Three things, in the order a Miami summer tests them.
Air and water. A closed home in August needs the air conditioning running and the humidity held down, and a water leak found the day it starts rather than the month the owner returns. Ask each building whether it offers an absence check, how often, and whether a water shut-off and a leak sensor are standard in the home. Anantara publishes in-residence sauna and red light options and circadian lighting; ask what the home's systems report remotely.
Storms. The season runs June to November, when the seasonal owner is away. Ask who closes the terrace, who files the association's storm plan and who walks the home afterwards. Villa Miami publishes two terraces on every home, sunrise and sunset; ask who clears them.
Entry. The declaration says who may enter an empty home and with what notice. File the names. Our building notes on Anantara's lock-and-leave terms collect the questions, and what it costs to own a condo in Miami each year sets out the budget a part-time owner pays whether or not the home is used.
Only if the rules allow it, and the rules differ. Anantara's resort residences sit beside a hotel, which is the kind of building where a rental program is sometimes offered; the developer's published material on our file does not state one, so ask the developer directly whether a program exists, who runs it and what the association's minimum lease term is. Villa Miami's half and full floors are family scale, and a seasonal owner there is more likely to lend the home than let it. 619 Brickell by Nobu is a residential tower; ask for the lease minimum in the declaration.
Read Miami short-term rental rules for the city and county layer, and buying a condo in Miami to rent out for what a rental changes in the file.
Anantara suits the seasonal owner who wants a building that is awake all year, a one or two bedroom scale, and a longevity floor to come home to. You give up a residents-only address and you share the lifts with hotel guests. See the Anantara dossier and Anantara and its neighbours in Edgewater.
Villa Miami suits the owner who wants the whole floor on the bay and the people who run Carbone running the house. You give up the lowest entry on this page and you carry the commercial components as a hope rather than a right. See the Villa Miami dossier.
619 Brickell by Nobu suits the owner who wants water views from every room and Brickell's restaurants a walk away, with the wellness floor as the daily reason to come down. You give up Edgewater's quiet and the Baywalk at the door. See the 619 Brickell by Nobu dossier.
The Edgewater zone page maps the bay side, and Edgewater or Bal Harbour: bay or ocean answers the buyer still deciding on the water. For the Brickell side of part-time ownership, read living part-time in Coral Gables, Coconut Grove or Brickell; for a family moving full time, relocating from San Francisco to Edgewater or Brickell or relocating from Washington DC to Coconut Grove or Edgewater. The desk asks each developer, in writing, who checks an empty home and how often, before you visit.
Contact the desk at Miami Dossier for the current plans, pricing and availability as the developer releases them, discussed one to one.
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We hold no listings and we are not the developer. Contact the desk at Miami Dossier and we will tell you what applies to your situation, what does not, and where we would not proceed. Where a question is legal, tax or structuring, we introduce you to advisers who handle that properly rather than answering it ourselves.
Samuel Strauch is the owner of Metrik Real Estate. His team of agents represents buyers in Miami pre-construction.
A person replies within 24 hours, usually much sooner. On weekends, back on Monday morning.
