South Florida's Last Stand At Sunny Isles Beach

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South Florida's Last Stand
At Sunny Isles Beach

By Candace Jackson
From The Wall Street Journal Online

SUNNY ISLES BEACH, Fla. -- The Trump Sonesta's Aquanox Spa here offers herbal mudwraps for $105 and air-conditioned beach cabanas. But the scene just across the street is a little less fabulous: At the North Collins Bingo and Arcade, a room of 70-somethings vie for a $250 jackpot. Bagels are free after 10 a.m.

Sunny Isles Beach, a roughly two-mile stretch of coastline halfway between Miami and Fort Lauderdale, was until recently a sleepy 1950s relic -- think retirees in lawn chairs. But those big cities are sprawling toward one another -- already, places like Hollywood have been altered dramatically. Now, Sunny Isles Beach, one of the area's last holdouts, is getting a particularly rapid makeover, thanks to intense interest from developers and upscale vacationers.

The town is still dotted with family-owned restaurants and two-story motels that date back to the Eisenhower era. But to attract wealthier travelers, luxury developers are rapidly adding new options. Dozens of old motels have been razed to make way for condos, high-rise hotels and pricey restaurants. In addition to the Sonesta, which will also have residential units, Donald Trump is building another set of condos in Sunny Isles. (A travel tip: Deals like the $3.95 cup of borscht at Wolfie Cohen's Rascal House may not last forever.) While the area was hit by Hurricane Wilma in October, the damage in Sunny Isles Beach was mostly cosmetic.

The changes here mimic the shift taking place up and down the coast of Florida. Because bigger cities can handle only so much condo-and-hotel development, developers are increasingly scouting out quiet, coastal retirement communities that are sitting on beachfront property with skyrocketing values.

Another big factor in the transformation taking place in Sunny Isles Beach is the discount airlines' push into new markets. Spirit Airlines, JetBlue Airways, Southwest Airlines and others now offer multiple flights a day into Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport from many major cities. As a result, tourists are increasingly viewing the once-separate regions of Miami and Fort Lauderdale, which are about 30 miles apart, as a single travel destination, says Mark Lunt, a travel analyst with Ernst & Young.

With Miami and Fort Lauderdale becoming more crowded and traffic-clogged, Sunny Isles Beach is pitching itself as a nearby alternative: a place where tourists can have the same white-sand beaches but also some serenity -- without having to give up all semblance of a nightlife. One possible hitch: Some locals and visitors complain that the condos and hotels block sunlight from hitting the beach, especially during wintertime, which is prime beach and tourist season.

In the past, a visitor here looking for a place to stay would have had to choose from dozens of places like the Golden Nugget, where the lobby lampshades are covered in plastic wrap. But the newest hotel in town, a 26-story building on the beach called Le Meridien, has an infinity pool, a gourmet restaurant and a spa with treatments like the $185 caviar facial. In February, Rosewood will open the Acqualina hotel, with room rates starting at $675 during the peak season.

Upscale shops like Flirt Cosmopolitan Clothing, which sells $365 True Religion Brand jeans, are popping up in retail centers that used to sell inflatable pool toys and discounted postcards. Timo, one of Sunny Isles Beach's newer restaurants, has a $17 foie gras crostini with carmelized oranges and fleur de sel.

Terry Alford, a 38-year-old doctor from LaGrange, Ga., stayed at the Doubletree Ocean Point Resort & Spa recently with his wife, who was in town for a yoga convention. They shopped at nearby Aventura mall, and took a cab to Nikki Beach, a club in Miami's South Beach. "I'd stay here as opposed to staying in downtown Miami," he says, citing proximity to the beach. "But it would have been nice for there to be a couple of clubs to go dancing."

It's not the first time that Sunny Isles Beach has pushed glitz. In its heyday, according to historians, Sunny Isles Beach had something of a Las Vegas vibe. Everybody from Frank Sinatra to the Beatles came through town to hang out at its two-story motels -- which were some of the first in the country -- and to bet on the nearby dog races and jai alai.

Joan Goldstein, now 73, says she partied with other 20-somethings on "Motel Row" back in the 1950s -- and even danced with a member of the Green Bay Packers once. She and her husband liked the area so much that they moved nearby 31 years ago; she now lives in neighboring Aventura.

The developers now remaking Sunny Isles Beach don't have any plans to slow down. "When we came in, we bought up pretty much everything we could," says Gil Dezer, the owner of Dezer Development, which works with Donald Trump as one the primary developers in Sunny Isles Beach. The company paid $10 million for the Colonial Inn, a dilapidated property on the beach. "People thought, what are you, crazy?" says Mr. Dezer.

Mr. Dezer says the company considered trying to salvage some of the pieces of the old motels, and even donated a mermaid statue from one hotel to a local park. As for the remaining smaller motels on the beach, "they're all going to be knocked down," he says.

That upsets April Winder, a beauty consultant for Mary Kay Cosmetics who lives in the area. She doesn't like the way the condos have changed the look of the town, or the transience of some of the people who live in them. But recently, she found an unusual way to cope with her disappointment about the direction of the town: She bought one of the condo units as an investment.

Email your comments to rjeditor@dowjones.com.

-- December 06, 2005