Part of Miami Beach hotel demolished, paving way for $750M back-to-the-future project

Real estate developer Michael Shvo took a bulldozer to one of his historic Miami Beach hotels, inching forward to the completion of his $750 million project.

Bulldozers and construction cranes ate away at the back-end of the Richmond Hotel at 1757 Collins Ave. on Tuesday morning, proceeding with a partial demolition process. Famed Art Deco architect Lawrence Murray Dixon designed the Richmond and adjacent hotels the Raleigh and South Seas in the 1940s. New York-based development firm SHVO intends to remove any additions made in subsequent decades to the three oceanfront hotels to leave them as originally designed.

The Raleigh and Richmond Hotel will have 60 hotel suites while the South Seas Hotel will house a fine-dining restaurant. A new 17-story, 175-foot condominium called the Rosewood Residences Miami Beach will sit behind the Richmond and South Seas. It will house 44 residences. The Rosewood Hotel Group will manage the Raleigh Hotel and Raleigh Residences. The project will be completed by 2025.

Shvo, chairman and CEO of SHVO, told the Miami Herald on Friday, “We are peeling the onion, bringing back these buildings to their original state. Once we are done, the public will see these historic buildings as they were originally built.”

Construction workers will first completely strip away portions of the Richmond Hotel, then move on to the South Seas Hotel and, in the fall, remove a penthouse on The Raleigh.