Condo and Home Remodeling in Miami Beach

A condo city with a lot of history

Census estimates count about 63,000 homes in Miami Beach. Nearly half (48.6%) are in buildings of 50 or more units and another 29.9% are in buildings of 10 to 49. Only about 1 in 10 is a single-family house. In ZIP code 33140, two-thirds of homes are in 50-plus unit buildings. Owners live in about 41% of them.

The median building dates to 1969, and the 1960s is the biggest single decade. Roughly 28.5% of homes went up before 1960. South Beach's Miami Beach Architectural District, listed on the National Register in 1979, has more than 800 contributing buildings in Art Deco, Mediterranean Revival and later styles. Postwar Miami Modern buildings line Collins Avenue farther north.

In an older building, the drain stack behind your kitchen or bathroom wall may belong to the association rather than to you. Read your declaration, or ask the manager, before anyone opens that wall.

Miami Beach's own Building Department, and its own rules

Permits here don't come from the City of Miami or the county. The Beach has its own Building Department, and applications go through the city's Civic Access portal at mbselfservice.com.

On top of the association letter, location matters. Miami Beach says it has 14 local historic districts. In a historic district or on a designated site, the city's code as posted requires a Certificate of Appropriateness before a building permit for exterior changes, and also for changes to the building's internal structure: columns, beams, load-bearing walls and floor plates. Interior plumbing, electrical and mechanical work that isn't visible from the street and isn't in a public space like the lobby is exempt. So a cabinet and fixture swap in your unit is usually simpler than taking out a wall to open the kitchen. Window replacement in a historic district can be approved by staff if it meets the criteria.

Outside the historic districts, the Design Review Board handles design review, and the city notes that single-family homes built before 1966 may qualify as architecturally significant.

Buildings also have their own deadlines. The city runs recertification at 30 years and every 10 years after, and state milestone inspections fall at 25 or 30 years depending on location and age. Buildings five stories and up also file annual maintenance logs with the city, according to Building Department notices. Ask your association what's coming due before you plan a big unit remodel, so a building repair bill doesn't land in the middle of your project.

Tides, raised streets and the 50% rule

The city's flood guide lists AE, VE, AH, AO and X zones inside the city limits, and the effective FEMA maps date from 2009. Parts of Miami Beach sit in each of these zones, so look up your address on FEMA's map rather than going by your neighborhood.

Sunny-day tidal flooding is why the city has been raising roads, with a goal of getting all streets to 3.7 feet NAVD88. On Palm and Hibiscus Islands, raised roads left some homes below street level, with steep driveways and garages that were hard to use, according to resident complaints reported by Local 10.

For a single-family house, the 50% rule is the big one. The city compares the cost of the work to the structure's value, using the Miami-Dade Property Appraiser's figure or a certified depreciated replacement cost appraisal. At 50% or more, the whole structure has to meet new-construction flood rules, which the city says may include elevating it.

Rules you'll only run into on the Beach

• No association letter, no unit permit. The city reinstated the requirement in 2022 after briefly waiving it in 2020.
• Historic review that reaches inside. In a historic district, moving a load-bearing wall or a column can trigger a Certificate of Appropriateness even though nobody sees it from the street.
• Its own preservation program. Miami Beach is one of 10 cities that opted out of Miami-Dade County's historic program and runs its own.
• Annual maintenance logs. Buildings five stories and up keep and file them, on top of recertification.
• Raised streets. Some houses now sit lower than the road in front of them, which is worth raising with your remodeler before a renovation is designed.

Unit and house projects on the Beach

• Kitchen remodeling: condo kitchens planned around the association letter and the building's work rules.
• Bathroom remodeling: unit baths where the riser may belong to the association, so it gets checked before demo.
• Home remodeling: single-family renovations where the 50% rule and elevation get settled first.
• Countertops: new counters for a unit kitchen, with the slab delivery booked around your building's rules.
• Kitchen cabinets: new cabinets in a historic-district unit, usually exempt from historic review when no wall moves.
• Flooring: new floors in a condo, after you ask the association what it requires under them.

Get the association letter lined up, then get your price in writing

Call (786) 627-5048 and we'll connect you with a remodeler who works in Miami. Press 1, then choose kitchen or bathroom and enter your ZIP code.