Miami’s hotel fortunes a tale years

Across the street from The Palm restaurant and across the bay from the Bal Harbour Shops is the Grand Beach Hotel Bay Harbor. Its position, between a carnivore’s bliss and a temple to the monied set, embodies the northern reaches of Miami Beach: relaxed, well heeled, traditional.

In a city of disparate submarkets, Bal Harbour and the contiguous Surfside are respite from the more raucous South Beach. Grand Beach Hotel, a development company based in Miami, has three hotels—all of which steer clear of SoBe. The company’s latest, the Grand Beach Hotel Bay Harbor, opened in March and joins two sister properties, Grand Beach Hotel Surfside and Grand Beach Hotel Miami Beach.

 While Surfside and Miami Beach are full-service, oceanfront hotels, Bay Harbor is toned down; it’s limited-service luxury. Hotel owners have wised up to appreciate that it is far easier to derive return on investment when you keep your overhead low. Bay Harbor, for instance, focuses on the room experience, eschewing the larger costs of operating a three-course restaurant. Instead, it offers a complimentary continental breakfast similar to what you’d find at a limited-service brand that is attended by only one employee.

“Affordable luxury was our motive,” said Frederic Marq, the decorator behind the hotel and the two other Grand Beach properties. “And in order to be profitable, you have to cut down on some services.” He compares the concept to Marriott’s Aloft brand.

All 96 rooms at the hotel include two bathrooms, an element that helps capture the upscale family market, which is a focus of all three Grand Beach properties. Marq said it’s a niche that most other Miami hotels have not embraced. 

Development of the hotel had its obstacles. The property abuts the bay and, as Marc pointed out, is literally atop water. “Constructing the foundation was a huge challenge since we basically were 9 feet under water,” he said. The challenge was having to pump enough water from one side to another in order to be able lay the foundation.