Raffles Hotels & Resorts has officially picked Coconut Grove for its first residential building without a hotel attached to it. Raffles Residences Coconut Grove will hold 35 private residences on South Bayshore Drive in Miami's historic bayside neighborhood, priced from $4.5 million, with sales set to launch this fall.
The residences will rise at 2545 South Bayshore Drive, with Brandon Haw Architecture designing the building for Mast Capital and BH Group. The two developers plan 35 homes in all, including a limited number of penthouses, with prices starting at $4.5 million. Camilo Miguel Jr., founder and CEO of Mast Capital, calls it "a new waterfront landmark." Sales are anticipated to open this fall.
The pitch rests on the Raffles name and the service that comes with it. Omer Acar, CEO of Raffles, framed the choice of neighborhood plainly: "Coconut Grove is a natural first for our first standalone, branded residences." Isaac Toledano, founder of BH Group, put the promise to buyers in terms of recognition, saying homeowners "can be known, their preferences understood." Here, those homeowners will be owners rather than hotel guests, in a building with no Raffles hotel beside it.
Ownership will also travel. Every owner at Raffles Residences Coconut Grove will receive global VIP recognition at Raffles properties and Elite status in ALL Accor, the loyalty program of Raffles' parent company, Accor. That status brings preferred rates across more than 45 brands and over 5,800 Accor hotels and resorts, so the benefits of buying a home in Coconut Grove extend to hotel stays well beyond Miami.