Crescent Heights has a sleeping project in Alton Road
“Made in South Beach” is written across the fencing, but the building behind it is still the exposed shell of South Shore Hospital. Its floors are open to the street, the windows are gone, and cars are parked along the perimeter. For a site at the entrance to South Beach, it has spent a long time looking like this.
Photo by Nadia Bouzid
Crescent Heights’ renderings show a different use for these blocks. The proposal, branded Made in South Beach, includes 501 rental apartments, 70,000 square feet of amenities and 60,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor retail. Landscaped courtyards run between the buildings, with shops and outdoor seating at ground level. The development would occupy the 500, 600 and 700 blocks of Alton Road, between Alton and West Avenue.
An earlier version was called The Waves and proposed 485 rental apartments. The name and the plans have changed, while the hospital shell remains. The photographs show its condition; the accompanying renderings show the scale of what has been proposed around it.
Photo by Nadia Bouzid
The site has a longer planning history than its appearance suggests. Miami Beach’s Planning Board granted conditional-use approval for the mixed-use project known as “600 Alton” in April 2013. A May 2017 planning report describes the southern block as a later phase of development, with temporary parking intended to serve construction on the 600 and 700 blocks. There are plans for these properties, although that has yet to translate into the neighborhood pictured in the renderings.
Now another proposal is being discussed. The alternative circulating in September would place a taller building on the 500 block and leave the 600 and 700 blocks for a public park. That is a considerable departure from the broader rental development illustrated here, and it raises a different question for the surrounding neighborhood.
A landscaped courtyard within a residential project and a public park are different additions to South Beach. So are buildings spread across three blocks and a taller structure concentrated on one. For nearby residents, the arrangement affects views, the street frontage and how much of the site they would actually be able to use. The number of apartments tells only part of that story.
The scale of the property makes it worth following. What happens here will be visible to people arriving from the MacArthur Causeway as well as those living along West Avenue. For now, the Made in South Beach sign shares the frontage with the old hospital’s concrete frame, and the plans still leave the practical question unanswered: when will something happen?
