Investor-turned-developer debuts hotel in Midtown amid Miami’s growing hotel market
Coconut Grove-based Aztec is best known for financing real estate — often with its own money. But in recent years, the firm has become a hotel developer on its own.
It’s latest lodging: the AC Hotel by Marriott Miami Midtown at 3400 Biscayne Blvd., opened earlier this month.
“We like the hotel business,” said the firm’s managing director Boaz Ashbel. “When it came to hotels in our local community, we thought we had an expertise we can lend.”
Though it was founded in 1981, Aztec didn’t begin developing until 2000. It’s first hotel project was the Hyatt Place Miami Airport-East. It has developed or co-developed four Miami hotels, including Hyatt Centric Brickell Miami and the Hampton Inn & Suites Miami Midtown that neighbors AC Hotel by Marriott Miami Midtown.
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Ashbel saw potential in opening a hotel in Midtown years ago when the neighborhood had few new lodging options. He said, “We saw this would be a unique location that would appeal to millennials, and liked that we were close to all these areas everyone wanted to visit. We had to convince the brands of what is happening here. To their credit, [AC Hotel] were open-minded and said yes. But it wasn’t an immediate ‘yes.’”
But it isn’t alone. Hampton Inn & Suites Miami Midtown next door opened in 2017. The luxury Hyde Suites and Residences Midtown Miami opened in 2018.
Both Ashbel and the hotel’s architect Kobi Karp of Kobi Karp Architecture & Interior Design believe the hotel’s multifaceted facade and other design features will distinguish it from others in the area.
“We felt that this could pay homage to the MiMo architecture on Biscayne Boulevard,” Karp said.
He pulled inspiration from historic buildings in Edgewater, including the Bacardi complex that is home of the National YoungArts Foundation.
“It creates an opportunity for people to come and stay in a neighborhood where normally they would not,” Karp said. “The cool Instagrammable hotels are bringing back people to cool neighborhoods. I think that’s what this hotel does.”
The hotel is fully booked for Super Bowl week, cashing in with rates between $750 and $1,000 per night. Daily rates in February and March are expected to range from $275 to $345 per night.
This story was originally published January 30, 2020 at 7:00 AM.
