“Most of the beach faces the sunrise. This address faces the boats.”
At five in the afternoon, the Intracoastal turns the color of brass, and the traffic on it is all hulls: sportfishers heading home, a Water Taxi working north, somebody’s tender idling off a seawall. From the terraces at 551 Bayshore Drive, that procession is the view. The Atlantic is behind you, three short blocks east, close enough to hear on a windy night.
The Ritz-Carlton Residences, Fort Lauderdale Beach brings 83 waterfront condos for sale to a barrier-island site with more than 400 linear feet of Intracoastal frontage, according to the developer’s MLS filings. It is a residential-only address: no hotel rooms, no conference guests, no shared pool deck.
83 Homes on the Intracoastal
The Project and the People Behind It
This shoreline has been promised before. The 1.58-acre parcel was once slated for an EDITION-branded project that never broke ground, then the Fort Lauderdale City Commission reapproved it in January 2024 as Olakino House, as reported by Florida YIMBY.
The current ownership paid $30 million for the land in 2023 and kept the approved envelope. What changed is the flag on it, and the fact that sales actually opened in March 2026.
The developer of record is 551 Bayshore SPE, LLC, a partnership of two firms. MICL is a Mumbai-based builder with more than six decades of work, including Aaradhya Avaan, which it describes as India’s tallest residential tower. Admire Capital is the Miami firm led by founder and CEO Diana Ulis.
PMG, the company behind Waldorf Astoria Residences Miami and Sage Intracoastal, serves as development manager. That last credit matters most to a cautious buyer: MICL is new to Florida, and PMG is the partner that has already delivered a branded tower and an Intracoastal building in this market.
One point of plain disclosure: the residences are not owned, developed, or sold by Marriott International. The Ritz-Carlton name is used under license, and the brand would leave the building if that license ended.
The Building and Architecture
Garcia Stromberg, the West Palm Beach firm behind The Boca Raton’s recent work and Alina Residences, split the program into two 13-story towers rather than one slab. The decision costs the developer efficiency and gives residents something better: four homes per floor in each tower, every one on a corner.
The approved height is 144 feet, modest by the standards of the hotel row on A1A, and the towers sit over a low podium with gardens planted between them.
Interiors are by Dan Fink Studio of New York, a practice published in Architectural Digest and Elle Decor and better known for private houses than for condominium lobbies.
That background shows in the studio’s vocabulary of walnut, marble and fluted glass, and in a palette that reads as a house on the water, not a hotel that happens to sell apartments. The landscape architect is reportedly Nievera Williams of Palm Beach.
Residences and Pricing
The floor plans tell a more varied story than the marketing summary. The building includes five distinct home types, and the differences between them are larger than the price gaps suggest.
| Type | Level | Layout | Interior sq. ft. | Terrace sq. ft. | Price from |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Villas 1–9 | 1 | 1 BR + den to 2 BR + den | 1,550–2,485 | 285–880 | $3,000,000 (Villa 8, 1,860 sq. ft.) |
| Villas A1 and A2 | 4 | 3 BR, 3.5 baths | 2,860–2,900 | 662–785 | On request |
| Residences 501–508 | 5 | 2–3 BR | 2,400–2,940 | 382–1,460 | $4,339,000 (507, 2,940 sq. ft.) |
| Residence C | 6–12 | 2 BR, 2.5 baths | 2,400 | 530 | $3,832,000 (901) |
| Residence B | 6–12 | 2 BR, 2.5 baths | 2,600 | 515 | On request |
| Residence A | 6–12 | 3 BR, 3.5 baths | 2,860 | 600 | On request |
| Residence D | 6–12 | 3 BR, 3.5 baths | 2,940 | 469 | On request |
| Penthouses A, B and C | 13 | 3 BR + den, 3.5–4 baths | 3,238–3,520 | 1,808–4,661 | On request |
Prices are active MLS listings dated July 7, 2026 and work out to roughly $1,475 to $1,615 per sq. ft. Buyers looking to purchase a waterfront condo for sale in Fort Lauderdale Beach at this level should ask for the current release sheet, because launch pricing has already moved.
The Villas
Nine ground-level homes open onto planted terraces along the promenade. Villa 7 is the building’s only one-bedroom, and Villa 3 is the outlier at the other end: a 2,485 sq. ft. plan with a great room that fans toward the water.
The Fifth Floor
This is the level a careful reader of the plans will go to first. It sits on top of the podium, so Residence 503 carries a 1,460 sq. ft. terrace against 2,600 sq. ft. inside, and Residences 504 and 505 each add 1,107 sq. ft. outdoors. The same layouts seven floors higher have roughly half that or less.
Tower Residences and Penthouses
Most homes arrive by private elevator vestibule, with a separate service elevator behind. Great rooms run up to 46 feet 6 inches wide in the C and D plans, and every terrace has a summer kitchen. Finishes are consistent throughout: wide-plank white oak floors, Sub-Zero and Wolf appliances, marble counters with full-height backsplash, Waterworks fixtures, and a freestanding tub in the primary bath.
The six penthouses have ceilings up to 11 feet. Penthouses A and B add an upper level with a private rooftop terrace and plunge pool; in Penthouse B, the pool is larger than the home beneath it.
Amenities
The amenity list is short for a branded building, and that is the point: it is sized for 83 households, not for a hotel’s occupancy.
On the Water
A private promenade runs the length of the seawall, with a limited number of dock slips for owners. The developer has not published the slip count, sizes, or pricing, and anyone buying for the boat should get those in writing first. For Intracoastal condos with dock slips, that detail decides more than the kitchen does.
Pools and Deck
A 75-foot lap pool for actual swimming, a separate leisure pool, private cabanas, and a poolside bar serving through the afternoon.
Wellness
A Technogym fitness and performance center, a yoga studio, and a spa with a plunge pool, treatment room, garden and hammam steam room.
Social Rooms
An owners’ lounge with a catering kitchen for private dinners, a screening room, a multi-sport simulator for rainy August afternoons, and a children’s playroom.
Service
An attended lobby with 24-hour concierge and valet, staffed by a dedicated residential team. Housekeeping of common areas, package handling, and move-in coordination are standard; restaurant, travel, and yacht arrangements are à la carte through third-party vendors and may carry fees. Owners also receive ONVIA, Marriott’s recognition program for branded-residence owners.
Location: Central Beach, on the Intracoastal Side
Bayshore Drive is the quiet western edge of Central Beach, the barrier-island strip between Las Olas Boulevard and Sunrise Boulevard. The water here is the Intracoastal Waterway, not the ocean and not a canal: a marked federal channel with deep-water passage south to Port Everglades inlet and no fixed bridges on the way to the Atlantic.
- The sand is a walk of about three blocks east, across Birch Road and Breakers Avenue to A1A.
- What surrounds the site is mostly hotel row. The Four Seasons and the Conrad stand almost directly east, which puts Evelyn’s and Takato within a five-minute walk, and Wild Thyme Oceanside Eatery at The Atlantic one block further.
- Bonnet House Museum & Gardens, the 1920s estate at 900 North Birch Road, is roughly half a mile north, with Hugh Taylor Birch State Park just beyond it.
- The Galleria mall is about 1.5 miles away across the Sunrise Bridge, and the shops and restaurants of Las Olas Boulevard are about 3 miles by car.
- The Water Taxi works this stretch daily from 10 AM to 10 PM, with stops at Birch State Park, the Galleria, and Las Olas, so dinner downtown can be a 25-minute boat ride each way.
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport is approximately 7 miles south: around 20 minutes mid-morning, 30 to 40 minutes in the weekday evening peak.
- The Brightline station downtown is about 4 miles west, and puts Miami roughly 35 minutes away by rail.
- For families, Bayview Elementary is about 2 miles and Pine Crest School about 6, though with only a handful of three-bedroom plans per floor the building skews toward second-home owners and downsizers.
Now the honest part of any survey of Fort Lauderdale Beach real estate. Bayshore Drive is not finished. The street still mixes mid-century motels and co-ops with construction sites, and another 13-story project is planned a block north, so expect cranes for several years.
No supermarket is within walking distance on the barrier island. Both routes to the mainland cross drawbridges that open for boat traffic, and on a winter Saturday that can add ten minutes.
A Saturday on Bayshore Drive
The street is slow to wake. At seven the only movement is on the water: a crew boat running north with coffee cups on the console, and the first paddleboarders hugging the seawall to stay out of the channel.
You walk east instead, because the sun is on that side, and by half past seven you are on the terrace at Wild Thyme with the ocean across the road and the sand still raked from the night before.
- In January the tables fill by eight with people who have plainly escaped somewhere colder; in August you can have the place nearly to yourself, and you will understand why.
- Bonnet House does not open until eleven, which suits the neighborhood’s pace. Go for the orchid house and stay for the lagoon, and accept that the Sunrise Boulevard traffic is audible from the far end of the grounds. Nobody mentions that in the brochures.
- The afternoon belongs to the boat or to the pool. Either way, by five you are back on the Intracoastal side, because that is when the light arrives. The Water Taxi goes by full of visitors photographing the houses on the opposite bank, and for a moment you are part of someone else’s sightseeing.
- If the evening calls for it, a short ride south lands you at Coconuts, where the tables sit at dock level, the order is reportedly always the crab claws they call Scoobies, and there is a wait, every weekend, without exception.
In December, the Winterfest Boat Parade passes directly in front of the building. That night, you stay home.
The Investment Case
The argument for this building rests on a combination that is rarer than it sounds: a top-tier hotel flag, private dockage, and no hotel. Consider the three addresses a buyer will be shown alongside it.
Four Seasons Private Residences, three blocks east, is finished and oceanfront, but its 90 homes share the tower with a 130-room hotel, and it has no water frontage for a boat. The St. Regis Resort and Residences at Bahia Mar, due the same year, offers a 245-slip marina. Yet, it is a 40-acre resort with four residential towers and a 256-key hotel, a different scale of neighbor altogether.
And the existing Ritz-Carlton, Fort Lauderdale at 1 North Fort Lauderdale Beach Boulevard is a hotel with residences inside it. At 551 Bayshore, the 83 owners are the only people with a key.
On brand value, the Savills Branded Residences Report 2025/26 puts the average global price premium for branded homes at 33% over comparable non-branded property, rising to 39% in resort markets. The same report ranks South Florida second in the world for branded schemes, with 48 completed and 55 in the pipeline.
That second number cuts both ways. According to The Real Deal, coastal Broward County has more than two dozen condo projects and nearly 4,000 units planned, so among pre-construction condos in South Florida this one will be delivered into real competition.
Its defense is scarcity of type: very few sites remain on the barrier island with this much Intracoastal frontage.
The risks deserve the same plain treatment. No construction start has been announced. The lead developer has not completed a building in the United States. Rental rules, association fees, and the deposit schedule have not been published, so yield projections are guesswork for now; for any pre-construction purchase, leasing policy remains subject to the final condominium documents.
Buyers who need rental income to make the numbers work should wait for the prospectus. Buyers who want a waterfront home that holds its value have enough to go on.
Why It Matters
Fort Lauderdale built its name on boats long before it built towers, and for decades branded addresses went to the oceanfront, leaving the Intracoastal to motels and marinas. This project reverses that priority. It gives the working side of the island, the side with the channel markers and the evening light, the kind of building that used to be reserved for the sand.
Frequently Asked Questions
When will The Ritz-Carlton Residences, Fort Lauderdale Beach be completed?
MLS records carry a 2029 build year, and one brokerage cites the fourth quarter. The developer has not announced a groundbreaking date, so treat the timeline as an estimate until construction financing and a start are confirmed.
Can owners rent out their residences, including short-term?
The rental policy has not been made public. In residential-only branded buildings like this, short-term platforms such as Airbnb and VRBO are commonly restricted, but the binding answer will be in the condominium declaration. Ask for it before signing.
How do the villas, tower residences and penthouses differ?
Villas sit at promenade level with garden terraces and the lowest entry price. Tower residences trade the garden for height and private elevator entry, with the fifth floor offering the building’s largest terraces. Penthouses add ceiling height and, in two of the three plans, a private roof.
Who designed the interiors?
Dan Fink Studio is confirmed for both the residences and the shared spaces. The landscape credit has appeared on a broker site but not in the developer’s own materials.
Is the building on the ocean?
No. It fronts the Intracoastal Waterway, and the developer’s own disclosures say so. Upper floors have ocean views to the east; the beach is a short walk.
What is the investment case in one paragraph?
A leading hotel brand, a small owner count, and private dockage rarely appear in one building, and the land that allows it is nearly gone. Against that, supply across the county is heavy and key terms are still unpublished. It suits an end user with a long horizon better than a short-term yield buyer.
How does it compare with Four Seasons and St. Regis Bahia Mar?
Both share their sites with hotels; this building does not, and it is far smaller than Bahia Mar. For a side-by-side on price, fees, and dockage, contact Bogatov Realty.
“The sunrise is three blocks away. The boats are home.”
To explore floor plans at The Ritz-Carlton Residences, Fort Lauderdale Beach or compare with similar listings in Central Beach, contact a Bogatov Realty advisor or submit an inquiry on this page. The Ritz-Carlton Residences, Fort Lauderdale Beach are not owned, developed, or sold by Marriott International, Inc. or its affiliates. 551 Bayshore SPE, LLC uses The Ritz-Carlton marks under license. Prices, plans, dimensions, and features are subject to change; refer to the developer’s prospectus for binding terms.