The Alamac, a seven-story Art Deco building on Collins Avenue in South Beach, has quietly come to market. Because the site was originally a hotel, it sits among only a handful of properties in Miami Beach that still carry the right to return to transient use, a detail that could nudge buyers toward a full hotel conversion.
CBRE is marketing the property at 1300 Collins Ave as a value-add conversion play. The offering centers on a seven-story building with 45 apartments, roughly 3,500 square feet of ground-floor retail, a pool and on-site management, and it is presented as fully occupied. According to the CBRE listing on LoopNet, brokers are pitching the site as convertible to a hotel or a short-term-rental operation.
Why the carve-out matters
As reported by Bisnow, Miami Beach passed an ordinance in early 2025 that requires a five-sevenths vote of the mayor and city commission before most new hotels or residential-to-hotel conversions can move forward. City leaders framed the measure as a way to preserve housing for workers and slow the growth of transient use, but it includes narrow carve-outs for waterfront parcels and for buildings that were originally hotels. That is how the Alamac keeps its hotel rights in play.
Owner pressed for redevelopment rights
Owner Melvyn Schlesser, who runs Jameck Development, went to city leaders last year to ask that the building’s hotel rights be preserved. He told the commission he had no immediate plans to convert but wanted the option on the table, saying, “This is the Entertainment District, that’s what it should be,” according to meeting coverage. The property opened in the 1930s as a 116-room Mediterranean Revival hotel and was later reconfigured into 45 rental units, with those historical and current details listed on the owner’s website. For coverage of Schlesser’s request see Bisnow, and for the building background see Jameck Development.
Price and comparables
Commercial listing platforms show the Alamac priced around $22.5 million, with an advertised $500,000 price-per-unit and a cap rate of roughly 4.16 percent, numbers that frame it as a small but strategic conversion bet. Those offering details appear on the commercial posting at Showcase, which reproduces the broker package and financials. The economics, especially low in-place rents combined with hotel eligibility, are the main reason brokers are framing it as a potential hotel or short-term-rental play.
What buyers will weigh
Any buyer will have to balance the time and expense of rehabbing and re-entitling the property against the premium Miami Beach guests pay for corner hotels, and will likely price in local politics and permit risk. Two Alamac units are already marketed as short-term stays on the Roami platform, a small but telling sign of visitor demand, while Miami Beach’s recent agendas and code changes make entitlements a key underwriting variable. See the city’s meeting materials on the City of Miami Beach agenda portal…