Miami Beach Neighbor Sues Soffer's Fontainebleau Water Park
The 1,593-key resort's water park was cleared to bypass Miami Beach's Historic Preservation Board under a March 2026 state law. A neighbor is suing anyway.
A Miami Beach resident has sued Jeffrey Soffer’s Fontainebleau Florida Hotel in Miami-Dade Circuit Court, challenging the state law that lets the resort’s planned water park skip the city’s Historic Preservation Board, according to The Real Deal. Resident Richard Simring filed the complaint in June, arguing the law improperly orders the city to approve the project administratively and strips the board of review it applies to every comparable project. Fontainebleau has moved to dismiss, arguing in part that Simring should have sued the state rather than the company, The Real Deal reported.
Why it matters
For developers, the case is a live example of a risk that is hard to underwrite: opposition that survives entitlement. The Florida Legislature handed Fontainebleau a path around local board review specifically built for “large destination resorts,” the state signed off, and the city’s own commission voted to fight the law rather than the project directly. None of that stopped a single resident from filing suit months later. A project can clear every review step a jurisdiction and a legislature can offer and still face litigation timed to whenever an opponent decides to file, adding legal cost and schedule uncertainty that shows up after a developer has already committed capital to construction.
The numbers
The bypass mechanism is CS/CS/CS/HB 399, signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis on March 27, 2026 and codified as Chapter 2026-7, which requires local governments to administratively approve minor special exceptions or variances for resorts of at least five contiguous acres, 500-plus guest rooms and 70% average occupancy, a provision that sunsets in 2031. Fontainebleau Miami Beach, at 4441 Collins Ave., sits on roughly 22 acres and carries 1,593 keys, comfortably clearing that threshold. The plan itself, per the city’s own account, calls for 11 water slides, including one roughly 120 feet tall, replacing part of the pool deck at the historic landmark. Miami Beach’s commission voted unanimously on Feb. 25, 2026 to oppose the state law, but stopped short of suing the state itself over cost concerns tied to state appropriations.
What’s next
Fontainebleau’s motion to dismiss is pending in Miami circuit court, and a ruling will signal whether the administrative-approval bypass in HB 399 can be challenged by an individual resident at all, or only by the state or a municipality. Developers pursuing similar large-resort renovations elsewhere in Florida under the same law should treat the outcome as a preview of how durable that bypass actually is once a project is under construction, not just entitled.