“Miami has driven past this land for decades without ever stopping.”
Every car that crosses the MacArthur Causeway between Downtown Miami and South Beach passes the same frame: a superyacht marina in the foreground, the Downtown skyline stacked behind it, and nearly eleven acres of Biscayne Bay frontage. That land has sat almost empty since voters first approved its development in 2001.
It may be the most looked-at vacant waterfront in Florida. Watson Harbour is the plan that finally fills it: a new development of two towers between Downtown Miami and Miami Beach. With no more than 105 Watson Harbour residences in the program, luxury condos for sale on Watson Island will be a small category from the day floor plans are released.
Watson Harbour: The Plan That Finally Fills Miami’s Vacant Waterfront
Watson Harbour at a Glance
- Name: Watson Harbour (also written “Watson Harbor”)
- Address: 888 MacArthur Causeway, Watson Island, Miami, FL 33132
- Developers: BH3 Management and Merrimac Ventures, with Fort Partners
- Program: up to 105 luxury condo residences, two hotels (approx. 150 and 350 rooms), waterfront retail and offices
- Height: two towers approved at 535 ft (approx. 40 stories) and 375 ft
- Status: pre-construction new development; groundbreaking not yet confirmed
- Pricing and floor plans: to be announced
Watson Island’s Twenty-Five Years of False Starts — and the Developers Who Ended Them
The site’s history explains both its value and its risk. In 2001, Miami voters approved a privately funded hotel-and-marina scheme here called Island Gardens. The previous leaseholder, Flagstone Property Group, delivered the deep-water marina and nothing else.
Years of delay ended in litigation and, as Commercial Observer reported, a 2019 settlement in which the City of Miami paid Flagstone $20 million. The land stayed a fenced lot with one of the best views in the city.
In early 2023, two Fort Lauderdale firms — BH3 Management and Merrimac Ventures — formed a joint venture and took over the 10.8-acre leasehold. They went back to voters in November 2024 with a revised plan, and a clear majority approved it. The ground lease was extended from 75 to 99 years, and 105 previously approved timeshare units were converted to for-sale condominiums.
The Commission permitted co-working office space and cut total commercial area by more than 10 percent in favor of open space. On December 11, 2025, the City Commission voted 4–1 to sell the venture the 3.2 acres at the heart of the site for $29 million, alongside a $9 million contribution to affordable housing and infrastructure.
The track records are specific. BH3, led by co-CEOs Daniel Lebensohn and Greg Freedman, completed Privé at Island Estates in Aventura — itself a private-island condominium that spent years in legal limbo. Merrimac, led by Nitin and Dev Motwani, is co-developer of the 27-acre, $4 billion Miami Worldcenter.
In September 2026, The Real Deal reported that a third firm had joined the project: Nadim Ashi’s Fort Partners, the developer behind the Four Seasons at The Surf Club in Surfside. BH3 and Merrimac confirmed the partnership.
Fort Partners’ exact role, or any hotel flag, has not been confirmed. Readers will see “Four Seasons” attached to this project elsewhere online; as of this writing, that is inference, not announcement.
Watson Harbour Towers & Architecture: What Is Approved, and What Is Still Unwritten
The entitlement allows two towers. The taller tower, approved at 535 feet and described in Miami Herald reporting as roughly 40 stories, is planned to house condominium residences above a luxury hotel of about 150 rooms.
The second, approved at 375 feet, is planned as a lifestyle hotel of about 350 rooms. Published figures for the retail and office podium beneath them range from roughly 200,000 to 221,000 square feet, with waterfront restaurants and shops facing the bay.
No architect has been publicly named, and the only official rendering released so far shows the promenade, not the towers. That is unusual for a project this prominent, and it is worth saying plainly: anyone describing the façade, floor plates, or interiors of Watson Harbour today is guessing.
What is documented is the engineering of the ground itself. The developers have committed to a seawall built above base flood elevation and extended past their own property line onto adjoining city land. An on-site stormwater system of rain gardens and infiltration beds is designed to keep runoff out of Biscayne Bay.
Native planting, a new tree canopy, and LED and solar lighting complete the list. On an artificial island at sea level, these are not brochure lines — they are the part of the project a lender and an insurer will read first.
Watson Harbour Residences & Pricing
The honest summary for anyone hoping to buy a condo at Watson Harbour today: the count is fixed by referendum at no more than 105 residences, all in the taller tower above the luxury hotel. Almost everything else is pending.
What Is Not Yet Known
As of September 2026, the developer has not released floor plans, bedroom counts, penthouse plans, square footage, or prices, and no sales gallery has opened. The private amenity program, the hotel operators, the rental policy, and any dockage rights for owners are likewise unannounced.
Each will be settled in the developer’s releases and in the condominium documents; until then, none should be assumed. Bogatov Realty will update this page as each item is published.
One structural point deserves a buyer’s attention before pricing arrives. The venture now owns 3.2 acres outright and continues to lease the remaining seven-plus acres from the city. The purpose of the land purchase — and of a reported $4 million payment to the State of Florida to lift historic deed restrictions — was to make for-sale condominiums possible at all.
Buyers should still confirm in the condominium documents, once filed, exactly which parcel the residential tower stands on and what rights attach to the leased portions of the site.
Watson Harbour Amenities: The Public Realm Comes First
Most towers publish a private amenity deck first and a sidewalk last. Watson Harbour has done the reverse. What follows is what has been committed to in public agreements.
On the Bayfront
A 2.2-acre promenade along Biscayne Bay, open to the public at no charge, is the plan’s centerpiece. It will be lined with restaurants and shops, small-business kiosks, and a maritime museum and art gallery. Residents should read this clearly: the ground level of Watson Harbour is designed to be a destination for the whole city, not a gated forecourt.
On the Water
The one piece of the 2001 vision that was actually built sits at the foot of the site: a deep-water marina engineered for superyachts, with a run to the Atlantic through Government Cut that involves no fixed bridges.
Location: An Island Between Downtown Miami and Miami Beach
Watson Island is a manufactured island of roughly 86 acres in Biscayne Bay, formed from dredge spoil in the 1920s and crossed by the MacArthur Causeway.
Watson Harbour occupies the southwest shore, facing the Downtown skyline across the water and PortMiami across the main ship channel. The water here is open bay and working harbor, not a canal or a lagoon. For residents, that orientation offers open bay views and Downtown skyline views.
- By car, Maurice A. Ferré Park — home to the Pérez Art Museum Miami and the Frost Museum of Science — and the Kaseya Center are about 1.5 miles west.
- The foot of South Beach at Alton Road and 5th Street is about 2.5 miles east.
- Miami International Airport is roughly 9 miles away. Allow 15 to 20 minutes in the middle of the day, and closer to 35 or 40 in the evening rush or on a Saturday when several cruise ships are turning over at the port.
- Miami-Dade Metrobus routes run the causeway in both directions; the nearest Metromover station, Museum Park, is on the mainland and is a bus or rideshare hop rather than a walk.
- On the island itself, the neighbors are institutions rather than shops: the Miami Children’s Museum next door, Jungle Island and the Ichimura Miami-Japan Garden across the causeway, the Miami Yacht Club and Miami Outboard Club on the eastern shore.
For anyone researching Watson Island real estate, that is the defining fact — this is a place with a marina, a museum, and a garden, and no residential history whatsoever.
Which leads to what the island does not offer. There is no grocery, no pharmacy, no school, and no street of cafés within walking distance, and until Watson Harbour’s own retail opens there will not be. A six-lane causeway runs through the middle of the island and is audible from most of it.
With a separate project of up to 600 residences approved on the north shore, residents of the first tower should expect to live beside construction for several years. Buyers who want a finished neighborhood on day one will be happier in Brickell or Edgewater.
A Saturday on Watson Island
Saturday here starts on the water, not the street.
- By eight, junior sailors at the Miami Yacht Club are rigging dinghies on the grass, and the sound that carries across the eastern shore is halyards tapping aluminum masts.
- By ten, the noise has moved south. The Miami Children’s Museum — a pile of primary-colored volumes designed by Arquitectonica — fills its lot with strollers, and the loudest thing on the island is a line of five-year-olds.
The quiet alternative is on the other side of the causeway: the Ichimura Miami-Japan Garden, a small walled garden of stone lanterns and raked gravel. Most Miamians have driven past it a thousand times and never been inside. It keeps limited hours, so check before heading over.
- Around four, the cruise ships begin to leave PortMiami. They dock directly across the channel from the island’s south shore, close enough to count the decks, and they cast off toward Government Cut one after another, horns included.
It is thrilling the first ten times. After that it is simply the island’s clock.
- Evening belongs to the skyline. The sun drops behind Downtown, the towers go from glass to silhouette, and the superyachts in the marina switch on their underwater lights. For now, dinner means crossing a bridge in one direction or the other.
That is the part Watson Harbour’s promenade is meant to change.
Investing in Watson Harbour
Start with the land. According to Miami Herald and WLRN reporting, appraisals commissioned by the city valued the 3.2-acre parcel at between $100 million and $340 million as unencumbered fee-simple property.
The venture paid less than a third of the low end of that range, because its existing long-term lease suppressed what the city could charge. The result is irreplaceable bayfront held at a basis that gives the developers room to build well and price rationally.
Then consider supply. A buyer comparing new construction and recent luxury condos in Miami will look at four alternatives.
- One Thousand Museum, Zaha Hadid’s 62-story tower, has 84 residences and a comparable skyline presence, but it stands on the inland side of Biscayne Boulevard with a park and a road between it and the bay.
- Aston Martin Residences has 391 units and sits at the mouth of the Miami River, facing the bay at an angle.
- The Terra–ESJ Capital project approved for Watson Island’s north shore will share this address but carry roughly six times the residential count across two towers.
- Fisher Island offers island privacy, but only by ferry; here you drive home.
Watson Harbour is the only one of the five that is simultaneously on the water, on an island you can drive to, and capped by referendum at a boutique number. That cap is also why condos for sale on Watson Island’s south shore will number barely a hundred, not several hundred.
Branding is the open variable. The Knight Frank Branded Residences Report has put the average global price premium for branded product at about 31 percent over unbranded comparables. If a hospitality flag is announced for the residences, that research becomes relevant; until then it should not be priced into anyone’s expectations.
The risks are equally concrete. This site has already defeated one developer, and the land deal itself drew sustained political criticism, including a short-lived attempt in January 2026 to reopen it.
There is no general contractor and no construction loan on public record. The presence of two hotels suggests a rental program is plausible, but buyers with investment intent must confirm the policy with the sales team before contract.
Who Watson Harbour Is For
Not for the buyer who needs a delivery date today, a school around the corner, or a quiet street. Not for anyone who wants their lobby to themselves — the bayfront here will belong to the city as much as to the residents.
It is for the buyer who works in Downtown Miami, spends weekends in Miami Beach, and is tired of choosing between them, for the boat owner who wants to look down at the slip from the terrace.
For the long-horizon investor who understands how rarely a new residential address is created in the middle of Biscayne Bay. And for anyone who has sat in causeway traffic, looked left at that empty lot and the skyline behind it, and thought: someone should live there.
“Now there is a reason to take the exit.”
Watson Harbour: Frequently Asked Questions
When will Watson Harbour be completed?
No completion date has been announced. Before the 2024 referendum, BH3’s Greg Freedman told the Miami Herald the team hoped to begin permitting in 2025 and break ground in 2026; no groundbreaking has been publicly confirmed as of September 2026. For a mixed-use project of this scale, buyers should plan on a multi-year horizon from the start of construction.
Is Watson Harbour a Four Seasons?
Not as of September 2026. Fort Partners, the developer behind the Four Seasons at The Surf Club and other South Florida Four Seasons properties, has joined the project, and BH3 and Merrimac have confirmed that partnership. No hotel brand has been announced for either tower or for the residences. Treat any “Four Seasons Watson Island” listing as speculation until the developers say otherwise.
Can residences at Watson Harbour be rented, including short-term?
This has not been determined. Rental eligibility will be defined in the condominium and HOA documents, which have not been filed. Ask the sales team for the policy in writing once contracts become available — particularly if Airbnb- or VRBO-style rentals matter to your numbers.
What floor plans and unit sizes will be offered?
None have been published. Bedroom counts, square footage, and any collection tiers will be posted on this page as soon as the developer releases them.
Who are the architect and interior designer?
Neither has been publicly credited. Renderings of towers on this site that circulate online may date from the previous leaseholder’s abandoned scheme and should not be treated as the current design.
What deposit structure should buyers expect, and can foreign buyers purchase?
No deposit schedule has been published. In Miami pre-construction, deposits are typically paid in stages — at reservation, at contract, and at construction milestones — with the balance due at closing. Each developer sets the percentages, and Florida law requires deposits of up to 10 percent of the price to be held in escrow.
Foreign nationals routinely buy pre-construction condos in Miami, though Florida restricts purchases by nationals of a small number of countries; confirm eligibility and financing with an attorney early.
Do buyers own the land, or is it leased from the city?
The development combines a parcel the developers purchased from the city with a larger area held under a long-term municipal ground lease. How the condominium relates to each will be spelled out in the offering documents; have a Florida real estate attorney review that section specifically.
Is Watson Harbour a good investment?
The case rests on three things that cannot be replicated: an island address between Miami’s two most valuable submarkets, direct bay and marina frontage, and a legally capped unit count. Against that stand the execution risks of an early-stage project. Independent legal and financial due diligence is essential, and Bogatov Realty can refer Miami attorneys with pre-construction experience.
To be notified when floor plans and pricing for Watson Harbour are released, or to compare it with other preconstruction and new construction condos in Miami on Biscayne Bay, contact a Bogatov Realty advisor or submit an inquiry on this page. Information is current as of September 2026 and is drawn from public records and press reporting. Program, design, and timing are subject to change by the developer; nothing here constitutes an offering.