Pebb Capital, Maxwell Group Plan Bancroft Hotel Tower in Miami Beach

Pebb Capital, Maxwell Real Estate Group and GFO Investments have filed to restore the historic Bancroft Hotel at 1501 Collins Avenue and build a 25-story, 325-foot tower beside it in Miami Beach, Florida YIMBY reported September 20. The filing pairs preservation of the 1939 hotel with 124 new residences, including 50 workforce housing units reserved for households earning up to 120 percent of area median income.

Why it matters

South Florida’s affordability fights rarely come with a preservation angle attached to them. This filing keeps the Bancroft standing rather than clearing the block, a route the Live Local Act makes more attractive by trading workforce units for added height and density. If it moves forward, Miami Beach gains market-rate condos and hotel rooms without losing a pre-World War II hotel to demolition, and it tests whether developers keep choosing restoration over teardown when the incentives point that way. The South Florida market hub is tracking how the Live Local Act is reshaping Miami Beach’s oceanfront blocks.

The numbers

The filing proposes 124 total residences: 74 luxury condos, 50 workforce housing units averaging 470 square feet each, and 42 hotel rooms tied to the restored Bancroft. The tower would rise 25 stories and 325 feet, with roughly 487,633 square feet of build-up area, part of more than 400,000 square feet of new construction on the site. Florida YIMBY’s report did not include a project cost or a hearing date.

What’s next

Florida YIMBY frames the project as enabled by the Live Local Act, which lets developers bypass some local zoning limits in exchange for workforce housing. No Miami Beach board hearing date has been made public. Neither Pebb Capital, Maxwell Real Estate Group nor GFO Investments has issued its own announcement, and what happens to the Bancroft’s original structure during construction has not been detailed.