Miami Beach commissioners rejected a zoning change for the Raleigh Hotel block on Wednesday and approved it about two hours later. The change raises the allowable floor area ratio at the site from 2.0 to 2.5. The reversal came after project backers asked the commission to reconsider during the afternoon Dr. Stanley Sutnick Citizens' Forum, and two members, Mayor Steven Meiner and Commissioner Monica Matteo-Salinas, changed their votes.
It followed a morning hearing in which commissioners negotiated the price of approval from the dais, and in which the Mayor called the owner's handling of a late-surfacing report "really outrageous."
What was on the table
The ordinance applies to oceanfront RM-3 lots over 100,000 square feet with a contributing historic building. Staff have said only Nahla Raleigh LLC's three-hotel block at 1751, 1757 and 1775 Collins Avenue qualifies, according to the Journal's earlier reporting. The increase would add roughly 66,400 square feet.
It covers floor area only. Height is the Historic Preservation Board's call, and its existing approval allows a 175-foot tower plus up to 25 feet of rooftop mechanical equipment, or 200 feet in all. Commissioner Laura Dominguez, who deferred the item at the previous meeting, read a "guardrail" into the record: the owner could not ask the board for more than 215 feet in total, equipment included, and the building itself could not exceed 200 feet without that equipment. Without it, city staff said, the owner could have sought as much as 225 feet. She also cited a signed agreement with the neighboring Marseille Hotel.
A report nobody had seen
Suarez asked the owner's economist, Andrew Dolkart of Miami Economic Associates, to present his analysis. Dolkart said stabilizing and restoring the three historic buildings would cost about $135 million, and that without the added floor area the project's internal rate of return would be negative. The owner, he said, targets 15 to 20 percent.
About 30 minutes later, Commissioner Tanya Bhatt said she had checked on the document. "I have a lot of questions about this document that we were just handed," she said. "I just checked with our city manager and our director of planning, whose name is on this document as the recipient. They've not seen it before this. I don't know who asked for it."
"I did," owner representative Genghis Hadi said. "It was prepared privately by me."
The Mayor pressed. "It's dated October 11th to our planning director, and she is nodding that she has never seen this document. It's October 14th." Then: "We just spent 30 minutes talking about it. This is really outrageous. You had the support, I think, up here, but this is not a good look. You can't have a document that we just spoke about for 30 minutes that none of us have ever seen, and one commissioner was handed a copy in advance."
Hadi said nobody had been given a copy in advance: "This was not submitted to anybody. This was prepared privately." Suarez said it was the first time he had seen it. "I'm scrambling around looking for what we're even talking about because it's just put on my desk a few minutes ago," the Mayor said.
"I will take responsibility for the mistake," Hadi answered. The report was prepared in case of questions before a second reading, he said, and reached the dais only when Suarez saw Dolkart in the audience and asked him a question. "I apologize." The owner's attorney, Alfredo Gonzalez, said it had been wrongly addressed to Planning Director Deborah Tackett.
A price from the dais
The Mayor then moved to what he called "a voluntary proffer" for public infrastructure. Gonzalez said the developer had offered $1 million, the figure in its application since June, for work such as the Beachwalk.
"Could you do a little better?" the Mayor asked. "Am I allowed to ask that, City Attorney?"
"If it's a voluntary proffer," City Attorney Ricardo Dopico answered, "they can voluntarily decide what they wish to voluntarily proffer."
Gonzalez came back at $1.2 million. Suarez asked that it go strictly to infrastructure, "not a pet project," and suggested flooding on Lincoln Road.
Commissioner Joe Magazine then raised what he called an "option B," in "very back-of-the-envelope math." He assumed 15,000-square-foot floor plates, estimated that an added floor could be worth about $45 million, and suggested the city could capture roughly $25 million. [CHECK: figures against the video.] "We don't have to opine on this up here," he said. "You can have those conversations with my colleagues in private between first and second reading."
The Mayor declined. "I'm happy to have the discussions like anything else, but I don't think I'm going to be there. It took me a lot to get to the point where I'm ready to vote yes on this proposal."
Suarez said he disliked "setting precedents" and that "maybe we should have a sort of stake in the game… if we are going to be giving these sort of extra rights to developers." He told the owner, "I'm not here to kill your project," and later said that "generally speaking, I'm okay between first and second reading for now to move this along." An attorney for the neighboring Shelborne Hotel told commissioners that "coming back here to negotiate dollars in exchange for additional FAR and height after due diligence is not a precedent that this commission wants to set."
A vote that needed six, and a five-minute wait
The land development regulation (item R5AI) needed six of seven votes. Commissioners raised the threshold for size increases from five votes in 2024, as the Journal has reported.
The clerk called the roll shortly before 12:45 p.m. Matteo-Salinas, called first, voted no. Dominguez, Bhatt and Magazine voted yes. Suarez, next in order, asked to be called last. The clerk said the roll goes in order unless colleagues agree, and Vice Mayor Alex Fernandez voted yes ahead of him.
That left two votes. With Matteo-Salinas already a no, the ordinance needed both Suarez and Meiner to reach six. "I'm waiting for Commissioner Suarez just to be clear," the Mayor said, and asked the clerk to confirm the threshold. "Correct," the clerk said. "R5AI needs 6/7 vote."
Suarez asked for time. "Give me a minute," he said, and later, "Just give me another minute. Okay, guys, thinking it through." Bhatt, who had already voted yes, remarked that "those minutes are dog year minutes" and said that after months of debate it was "disrespectful to the people on both sides of the issue to spend more than a minute or two really thinking about things… it's a first reading."
About five minutes after he was first called, Suarez said, "No." It came from a commissioner who had joined the dais bargaining himself, asking what approval was worth and pressing for the city to have "a stake in the game," while saying he was "okay" with moving the item along between first and second reading.
"The item fails," the Mayor said. "I'll register a no vote." His vote could no longer change the outcome. The tally was 4–3: Dominguez, Bhatt, Magazine and Fernandez for, Matteo-Salinas, Suarez and Meiner against. The companion comprehensive plan amendment (R5AH) never reached a roll call, and the commission recessed at 12:50 p.m. until "10 to 2."
As the Mayor announced the recess, the city's YouTube livestream picked up a voice on a live microphone. "I'd love to hear people map out a path forward there," Magazine could be heard saying. "F---ing joke."
The reversal
Six people spoke on the Raleigh when the forum opened around 2 p.m. Architect Kobi Karp told commissioners, "I would like you… to reconsider your vote for the historic Raleigh." Marseille Hotel operator Lloyd Mandel asked the same. Hadi said: "I am here to appeal to each of you to reconsider. Allow us to move to the second reading." Anabel Llopis, executive director of the Lincoln Road Business Improvement District, asked commissioners to at least extend the project to second reading. Ray Breslin of the Collins Park Neighborhood Association and Jeff Lagowitz also spoke in favor.
Two callers pushed back. Wayne Roberts praised the Mayor, Matteo-Salinas and Suarez for "having a backbone" and said a $1 million benefit was "ridiculous." He suggested the owner pay $25 million to the city and $25 million to its neighbors. The Shelborne's lawyer and owner and the Miami Design Preservation League, who testified in the morning, did not speak in the afternoon. The Journal's publisher spoke against the increase at both sessions, telling commissioners he was disappointed to see supporters "coming at Sutnick after a public hearing, trying to get it reconsidered when other people who are not in support of it are not here."
When the forum closed, at about 2:40 p.m. by our estimate [CHECK: time], Matteo-Salinas asked for the floor. "I'd like to reconsider my vote for the Raleigh project, and I'll vote yes." After a reminder that she needed a formal motion, she moved to reconsider both items, and Fernandez seconded. No one objected, and the items were back on the table. City code generally bars bringing back a failed ordinance for 90 days unless six commissioners waive the wait, but it expressly exempts a reconsideration vote. Fernandez then moved approval, seconded by Matteo-Salinas and Magazine.
Matteo-Salinas hedged. "I'm very conflicted on this… it's gonna be really tough to get me to a yes on 2nd reading. Not impossible, but very tough… get your hopes up, but not too far." Magazine called the project "our Renaissance." The Mayor, who had said he was "ready to vote yes" before the morning vote, offered no further explanation beyond the property's history: it has been "vacant for 12 years." He asked for the vote.
The clerk restated the terms: a $1.2 million infrastructure contribution, a 2031 sunset, a 215-foot height cap, and a waiver of the zoning cycle so the item returns in November. They were identical to the morning's motion. This time the roll went Fernandez, Magazine, Suarez, Dominguez, Matteo-Salinas, Bhatt and Meiner. Suarez voted third, with no delay, and again voted no. The other six voted yes, and the clerk said, "Motion carries." The Mayor, who had registered a no that morning, voted yes.
What's next
Second reading is Nov. 18, and the ordinance again needs six votes. Matteo-Salinas said a yes then is possible but "very tough." Any taller tower would still need Historic Preservation Board approval.
