Raffles Picks Coconut Grove for Its First Stand-Alone Residences: 35 Bayfront Homes From $4.5 Million
The Singapore-born hotel brand is putting its name on a 35-unit Bayshore Drive condo with no hotel and no overnight guests, a bet that Miami's wealth wave keeps rolling.
MIAMI — One of the oldest names in luxury hospitality is betting that Coconut Grove’s transformation into a haven for the very wealthy is far from finished.
Raffles, the hotel brand founded in Singapore in 1887 and now owned by Accor, is lending its name to Raffles Residences Coconut Grove, a 35-unit waterfront condominium at 2545 South Bayshore Drive. Developers Mast Capital and BH Group say it is the first stand-alone Raffles residential development in the United States, and Douglas Elliman describes it as the brand’s first stand-alone residential development worldwide. Prices start at $4.5 million.
The project was announced exclusively to Fortune on Oct. 29, with sales launching the same week through Douglas Elliman Development Marketing. The South Florida Business Journal also reported that it will be the first stand-alone condo in the U.S. for the hospitality company.
A Hotel Brand With No Hotel
The pitch is unusual for a hotel name: there will be no hotel rooms and no overnight guests. “No one is checking out,” Omer Acar, CEO of Raffles and Fairmont Hotels and Resorts, told Fortune. He said the goal is a home “that happens to be exceptionally well looked after, not a hotel unit you happen to own.”
That puts Coconut Grove in contrast to the brand’s first North American foray. According to Douglas Elliman, Raffles made its continental debut with Raffles Boston, a mixed-use hotel and residential property. The Grove building is designed entirely around private ownership.
Residents will still get hotel-style trappings. Mast Capital founder and CEO Camilo Miguel Jr. told Fortune the building will include a restaurant, a spa and fitness center, and a rooftop with a pool deck and bar, plus private pools for the penthouses. “If anything, for only 35 unit owners, it’s going to be over amenitized,” he said.
The building is designed by architect Brandon Haw and will offer two- to 4.5-bedroom homes along with a limited number of penthouses, Fortune reported. Elliman says the collection includes four penthouses and that details on architecture, interiors, amenities and services will be unveiled in the coming months.
How the Site Came Together
Bayfront land in the Grove is scarce, and this project did not start with a vacant lot. Mast Capital’s project page describes a 1.1-acre site on Bayshore Drive and says the partners completed the acquisition of 100% of the units in the existing condominium in February 2026.
BH Group founder Isaac Toledano told Fortune the developers negotiated a condo termination with the older building’s owners. He said the partners could have fit more units on the site but chose to cap it at 35. “You want to meet some people, but on the other hand, you don’t want to be with another 300 neighbors,” Toledano said.
On timing, BH Group’s project page lists construction starting in June 2027, with completion expected by the second quarter of 2029. Miguel told Fortune the developers plan to collect presales this season.
Demand Before the Launch
According to Miguel, about 40 people had expressed interest in the roughly 35 units even before the public announcement. “We don’t really play in the middle market,” he told Fortune. “We continue to see tremendous amounts of wealth moving into Florida, especially South Florida.” He called the Grove “one of the highest barrier entry condo markets in the state.”
The neighborhood’s recent buyers help explain the confidence. Fortune noted that Citadel founder Ken Griffin paid $106.9 million for a Coconut Grove estate in 2022, and that Google co-founder Larry Page bought two Grove estates in late December and early January for about $173.4 million combined. The magazine also cited a Miami Realtors analysis of IRS data showing Florida absorbed a net $137 billion in income from other states between 2019 and 2023.
Miguel also told Fortune he expects many buyers to be families living in the building full time, saying the old flip-focused mentality among Miami condo buyers has changed.
The Sales Team
Douglas Elliman Development Marketing is the exclusive sales and marketing firm. The team is led by sales director Matthew Chook, with agents Lourdes Alatriste, Jennifer Goldstein and Jorge Sanchez, according to the firm’s announcement.
“A project of this significance deserves a sales team with the experience and reach to tell its story to the right buyers around the world,” Miguel said in Elliman’s release. Toledano said in the same release that the partners wanted a firm that “understood both the significance of the Raffles brand and the depth of the opportunity in Coconut Grove.”
What It Signals
Branded residences have become one of the defining products of Miami’s luxury cycle, and many attach a hotel name to a large tower. Raffles Residences Coconut Grove goes the other way: small, low-density and positioned for full-time owners in a neighborhood where land along the water is effectively gone.
For the Grove, it is another marker of how far the village has moved from its bohemian reputation. For developers, the more telling detail may be the method: assembling a site by buying out an entire existing condominium, a path that has become one of the few ways to build new product on Miami’s most coveted waterfront.
Sources: Fortune, Douglas Elliman, Mast Capital, BH Group, South Florida Business Journal.