“For seventy years this bay was in frame. Never in reach.”
Channel 7's cameras have looked out over this stretch of Biscayne Bay since 1956, and for most of that time the shoreline behind the newsroom was an office building, a staff parking deck, and a seawall no one could walk to. Now the station is packing for Miramar, the 1957 building is scheduled for demolition, and Arquitectonica has drawn a 39-story tower on the parcel next door.
Isle of Dreams — 246 homes on 2.72 acres of open bay frontage — is the first and largest of the luxury condos for sale in North Bay Village to come from the family that has held this shoreline longest.
Isle of Dreams — North Bay Village's First Family-Built Tower
A Television Family Builds Its First Tower
Sunbeam Television was founded in 1953 by Sidney Ansin, a Miami Beach real estate developer, and his son Edmund. In December 1962, the company acquired the Channel 7 license for $3.4 million; the call letters were changed to WSVN in 1983. Andrew Ansin, Sidney's grandson, now runs both the broadcaster and its property arm.
Sunbeam bought the four-story, 75,295-square-foot office building at 1400 79th Street Causeway in 2015 for $13.76 million. Only its ground floor is still in use, largely as parking for station employees. Ansin has said publicly that his late father always thought the parcel would make a good apartment site.
Isle of Dreams is the first phase of the Sunbeam NBV Special Area Plan, approved by the Village Commission in 2022 after a contested vote that raised permitted heights from 240 feet to 450 feet south of the causeway and from 340 feet to 650 feet north of it. Residents objected on scale; commissioners approved it 3–2 on first reading and again on second reading after midnight.
The full plan covers 13 acres and contemplates roughly 1,936 residences (6 percent workforce housing), a 300-key hotel, about 670,000 square feet of commercial space, roughly 200,000 square feet of offices, close to 5,000 parking spaces, 1.25 acres of public open space and a proposed ferry landing — a mode of transport North Bay Village has never had.
The Building & Architecture
The submitted elevations put the roof at 450 feet above grade — 466 feet above sea level — with the highest architectural point reaching approximately 490 feet. Per Floridian Development's reading of the filing, that would make it the tallest structure within a two-mile radius, exceeded only by the Akoya Condominium on Collins Avenue, which stands two feet higher.
Arquitectonica's form is a curved slab that rises from a 100-foot podium containing seven levels of parking. Level 8, the amenity deck, is shown on the drawings as a 16-foot floor-to-floor height and reads as a landscaped platform of specimen palms above the garage.
Residential floors begin at Level 9 with 12-foot floor-to-floor heights through Level 19, tighten to 10 feet 8 inches through the mid-tower, and open up again at the crown, where Level 39 is given 13 feet 8 inches. The drawings skip Level 13 entirely — a small piece of old-fashioned developer superstition preserved in a 2020s permit set.
The more consequential design decision is horizontal. Rather than filling the parcel to the seawall, the tower mass is pulled back from the water to avoid the walled-off effect that plagues the causeway's older buildings.
The project provides a 68-foot visual corridor where Miami-Dade County code requires 57 feet, and takes a 35-foot shoreline setback where code would demand 75 feet for a structure of this height — an exception granted in exchange for a permanent public easement over the waterfront walk.
The waterfront section drawing shows what that produces: a lower promenade set at 11 feet above sea level, an upper promenade and café terrace at 16.7 feet, connected by stairs and planted with specimen palms and built-in seating.
On a barrier island where the county measures everything in feet above the water, elevating the walkable surface twice is a flood-resilience decision that happens to make for a far better piece of public shoreline than a flat deck would.
Residences & Pricing
Sunbeam has disclosed the shape of the unit mix but has not published floor plans. The building is weighted toward two- and three-bedroom layouts. The largest homes exceed 4,000 square feet.
The smallest, at about 500 square feet, are intended as guest suites — a hotel-derived idea that lets an owner house visitors without giving up a bedroom — and are among the few genuinely useful innovations to appear in Miami pre-construction condos in recent years.
- Guest suite/studio — approx. 500 sq. ft. — price not yet released
- Two- and three-bedroom residences — approx. 1,500 sq. ft. average — price not yet released
- Upper-floor large-format residences — 4,000+ sq. ft. — price not yet released
- Building total — 246 residences, Levels 9–39
There is no published price sheet. Any figure presented online as a starting price for this building is an estimate, not a disclosure.
Anyone who wants to buy a condo in North Bay Village at this address is, at present, joining a reservation list rather than executing a purchase contract.
There is a further open question worth stating plainly: as of the developer's most recent public comments, the choice between selling the building as condominiums and holding it as rentals had not been finalized.
Ansin cited the family's preference for long-term ownership over faster condominium profit. Confirm the structure in writing before committing capital.
Amenities — Roughly 100,000 Square Feet, Plus the Part That Isn't Private
The resident amenity program approaches 100,000 square feet, concentrated on and around the Level 8 deck:
- Four distinct pools, including an Olympic-length lap pool
- Spa and treatment facilities
- Fitness center and golf simulator
- Pet grooming facilities, with a dog park at ground level
- 23,043 sq. ft. of restaurant and retail, planned around three waterfront restaurants
- 18,720 sq. ft. of landscaped area across the site
The most unusual entry on that list is not the golf simulator. It is the Island Walk: an 18-foot-wide public easement along the shoreline, decked in ipe, planted with native species, and fitted with seating, running more than 200 feet across this parcel as part of a walkway the Village eventually intends to extend around Treasure and Harbor Islands.
Residents of most bayfront towers own their seawall and see no one on it. Residents here will share their waterfront with anyone who walks up — permanently, by recorded easement, the legal instrument that granted the tower its setback exception in the first place. Whether that reads as generosity or as a trade is a matter of temperament.
Location — Open Bay, Not Intracoastal Channel
The distinction matters. This is north-facing frontage on open Biscayne Bay, not a canal, not a dredged Intracoastal cut, and not an ocean beach.
Pelican Harbor Marina, a few hundred yards west, is the launch point: from here a boat reaches open Atlantic through Haulover Inlet to the north or Government Cut to the south, and the marina also rents jet skis, kayaks, and paddleboards.
- Pelican Island, a brown pelican and cormorant sanctuary, sits just offshore. For buyers weighing Biscayne Bay waterfront condos against barrier-island alternatives, this is the trade: you give up the sand, and you gain the water itself.
- Transit is a bus proposition. Metrobus Route 79 runs the causeway twenty-four hours a day between Hialeah Metrorail station and South Beach — roughly forty-five minutes into Miami — and Route 279, the 79 Street MAX, adds limited-stop weekday service to Northside Metrorail. The Village itself operates a free Freebee shuttle on weekday mornings and evenings.
- Miami International Airport is about twelve miles west via the causeway and I-195, twenty-five minutes off-peak and appreciably worse after four.
- Miami Beach is three miles east; Wynwood six miles west; Mount Sinai Medical Center six miles. Walk Score rates the address 61 — somewhat walkable, which is honest.
- Families should know that Treasure Island Elementary is the only public school on the islands, on Treasure Island, a short drive west; it is also the site of a park and community center the Village is developing in partnership with the Argentine Football Association.
- Older children zone off-island. Presidente Supermarket remains the Village's only full grocery, though Shoma Group's 36,100-square-foot Publix at 1872 79th Street Causeway will change that when Shoma Bay delivers.
And the honest part: North Bay Village is three low-lying islands sitting in a FEMA AE flood zone. New construction is built to current elevation standards and is the least of the exposure; insurance assumptions and the pace of municipal infrastructure work are the real variables. Any buyer should price them in rather than around.
Weekend on the Causeway
The causeway keeps weekend hours, which are not city hours.
- By seven on Saturday the marina ramp already has trailers backing down, and the people in them are not visitors — they are locals who know the run out through Haulover is easiest before the wind fills in around ten. Nothing on the retail strip is open. Nothing needs to be.
- By noon the patio at Benihana, at 1665 on the causeway, is filling with the particular North Bay Village mix: families from the older condo towers, a table of station staff, boaters who tied up rather than parked. The onion volcano still happens. The building was rebuilt from the ground up in 2019 on a site the restaurant had held for nearly fifty years, and the new patio faces straight north toward the bay and the inlet, which is why it's worth sitting outside even in August.
- Saturday night belongs to Palm Tree Club, the waterfront restaurant and hotel that DJ Kygo's Palm Tree Crew opened with Continuum Company in December 2024 at 1819 79th Street Causeway. It stands on the site of Shuckers, the deck bar that had been there since 1989, and any local will tell you within five minutes which of the two they preferred.
- Sunday reverses the rhythm. The boats come back rather than leave, the inlet turns into a slow parade from about four o'clock, and the loudest thing on the water is other people's music arriving in pieces across the bay. By dusk the ramp is empty, and the causeway goes quiet early.
Which is the honest thing about this causeway: it does not keep its institutions. Shuckers closed in October 2024. Osteria del Teatro, which had moved up from Española Way in 2023, shut for good in 2025.
The Japanese Market sushi counter at 1412 — four seats, no signage, directly opposite the television station and one door from the Isle of Dreams site — closed after nearly four decades.
A buyer here should assume the ground floor of this neighborhood will look substantially different in five years. That is, after all, the entire premise of the purchase.
Investment Perspective
North Bay Village currently has close to two billion dollars in announced development across four islands, and the competing projects are sufficiently specific to compare directly.
The Ritz-Carlton Residences, North Bay Village — Related Group with Macklowe Properties, also designed by Arquitectonica — plans two 43-story towers and 364 condominiums on Harbor Island, with a 42-slip marina and a public park.
It carries the strongest brand in the market. It has also not launched sales or published a price sheet, which means unit mix, deposit structure, and HOA estimates remain unknown.
Pagani Residences at 7940 West Drive offers 70 residences from roughly $3.7 million, with duplex penthouses at $28.5 million and $30 million; the brand is extraordinary, and the building is tiny, which means very little resale liquidity and no ground-floor commercial to speak of.
Continuum Club & Residences, from the Eichner family, is the closest analog in ambition: two towers, a 200-key hotel and a marina, financed in 2026 with a $261 million construction loan and an $83 million predevelopment facility.
That financing detail is the sharpest distinction available. Continuum is building on borrowed money, subject to a schedule set by its lenders.
Sunbeam has stated it will develop this site from accumulated operating cash regardless of market conditions — the position of a family that has owned the land since long before it was worth building on, and that is simultaneously relocating its own 350-employee broadcast operation to Miramar to clear the way.
For a pre-construction buyer, developer solvency is the single largest unhedged risk, and this is the rare project where it is close to a non-issue.
The corresponding exposure is concentration. A buyer at the Ritz-Carlton or Pagani depends on other developers to complete the surrounding neighborhood.
A buyer at Isle of Dreams is betting on one family to build the grocery, the offices, the hotel, the ferry landing, and the seven-to-nine additional towers that are meant to make this North Bay Village real estate worth what the pricing will eventually ask.
Concentrated bets pay well when they land. Diversification is what protects you when they do not.
The Case for the Address
What is genuinely rare here is not the height or the amenity count. It is the position: 2.72 acres of open bay frontage held for decades by a family with no need to sell it, in a village of 8,000 people sitting between Miami and Miami Beach, at the exact moment four separate developers decided to rebuild it at once.
Ten years from now, this causeway will either be one of the best addresses in Miami-Dade or a cautionary tale about building at sea level. It is unlikely to be anything in between.
The people buying early are buying the version of that story where the ferry runs, the promenade connects, and the ground floor is finally worth walking on. It is a reasonable bet.
Frequently Asked Questions
When will Isle of Dreams be completed?
Developer statements point to a groundbreaking around 2027, and the existing 1957 office building must come down first. Early marketing materials list 2028 as the completion date, which cannot be reconciled with that start date for a 39-story tower. Plan around 2029–2030, and treat any earlier figure as aspirational until a construction contract is announced.
Is Isle of Dreams a condominium or a rental building?
This has not been settled publicly. Andrew Ansin has stated that condominiums yield faster profits but that his family's orientation is toward long-term ownership, and that the decision remains open. Reservations are being taken on a condominium basis; the recorded documents will determine what buyers actually receive. Ask for written confirmation before any deposit changes hands.
Can residences be rented out, and are short-term rentals allowed?
No rental policy exists yet, because no condominium declaration exists yet. Short-term rental rules, in particular, will be set by the HOA documents at recording and are also subject to municipal ordinances. Any assurance you receive on Airbnb eligibility today is an opinion, not a policy.
What is the difference between the smallest and largest residences?
The 500-square-foot guest suites are exactly that — accommodations for visitors, sized like hotel rooms and not intended as primary living space. At the other end, upper-floor homes exceed 4,000 square feet with the tower's tallest ceilings and full bay-and-skyline exposure. Between them sit the two- and three-bedroom residences that make up the bulk of the building.
Who is designing the interiors?
No interior designer has been publicly confirmed. Arquitectonica is the architect of record, and the tower's exterior language is fully documented in the permit set. Still, interior finish specifications, appliance packages, and kitchen fabricators have not been released. Treat any renderings showing specific interior finishes as illustrative.
What is the Island Walk, and does it affect residents?
It is a public waterfront path the Village is assembling across its islands. Here it takes the form of a recorded 18-foot public easement along the shoreline — permanent, and the legal basis on which the tower received its reduced shoreline setback. Residents gain a landscaped bayfront promenade; they also share it. Anyone who requires a private seawall should weigh this carefully.
How does Isle of Dreams compare with the other new towers here?
Among the luxury condos for sale in North Bay Village, it is the largest, the only one that is phase one of a master plan controlled by its own developer, and the only one funded from a family balance sheet rather than construction debt — but also the only major one without a published price. The Ritz-Carlton, Pagani, Continuum and Shoma Bay each answer a different buyer. For a side-by-side comparison of pricing, deposit terms, and delivery risk, contact Bogatov Realty directly.
“The cameras move north. The frame becomes a window.”
To review the Isle of Dreams reservation terms, or to compare it against Pagani Residences, Continuum Club & Residences and the Ritz-Carlton Residences in North Bay Village, contact a Bogatov Realty advisor or submit an inquiry on this page. Project details, heights, unit counts, and timelines are current as of August 2026 and are drawn from Miami-Dade County shoreline review filings and published developer statements. Pricing has not been released. Verify all figures against the developer's recorded documents under Section 718.503, Florida Statutes, before purchasing.