Going into this past weekend, we had two tropical waves heading towards Florida, with each carrying a decent chance of developing into a tropical depression, and another headache for our great state. Luckily, things dissipated out in the Atlantic, and a seven-day outlook now shows no tropical cyclone development on the horizon. We do hope you have your hurricane preparedness plan ready though, as it only takes one hurricane to have a bad season! (See my Lisa’s Lucky 7 Hurricane Season Prep for guidance.)
Eight of the nine boxes have been completed on the Waldorf Astoria Residences under construction in Miami as of July 21, 2026. Courtesy Luiz Martins via World Cityscapes & Skyscrapers Facebook page post
Clear skies are great news for the Waldorf Astoria Residences on Biscayne Boulevard in Miami, a huge dream project that once completed next year, will be Florida’s tallest building and the only ‘supertall’ high-rise at 100 stories – that’s over 1,000 feet tall. It will also become the tallest residential tower south of New York. The attention-grabbing stacked glass box designed building will have 360 condominiums ranging in price from $3.5 million to $50 million and another 205 hotel rooms, a true symbol of Florida’s future-forward sentiment − and focus on resilience, especially in the face of our regular storms.
While these last two tropical waves fizzled out, builders of the Waldorf Astoria are well aware of the hazards associated with building in coastal Florida, especially when you’re 900+ feet up. A category 2 storm at 30 feet can have major hurricane force winds at 900 feet and the swaying building so high up can be quite unenjoyable for the residents. Construction was catered to both of these instances. The building features glass that can withstand 175-mph winds, and a “tuned mass damper” with a price tag of $8 million placed towards the top of the building. It’s a superdense object that offsets any motion in the upper floors, using the science of pendulums.
But that’s not all. Engineers also bored 160 feet down into the earth to find the optimal mix of sand and limestone to support the footprint of the building, and capitalized on “deep-soil mixing” to circumvent problems with the shallow water table and any construction-related vibrations to nearby buildings. Also, all inhabitable floors are well above flood level. These decisions are very expensive, but the peace of mind for guests, investors, and future insurers cannot be understated.
Photo montage with rendering of the Waldorf Astoria Residences in downtown Miami. Courtesy, Property Management Group
Property Management Group managing partner Ryan Shear weighed in on the project being in-line with Miami’s incredibly strict building code, telling Florida Trend that “(high-rises) are built like mini-fortresses, frankly. But they should be.” The state-of-the-art nearly $668 million project has checked all the boxes for mitigating risk on such a historic project, which begs the question of who will step forward to insure the behemoth. One thing’s for sure: the supertall construction and insurance landscape in Miami is ripe, with seven more in the works.
The 24-story mural wraps around the Excel Miami building in the city’s Arts & Entertainment District. Courtesy, Shawmut Design and Construction
Miami just broke another record, too, with the nation’s tallest mural. It was recently completed on the sides of the Excel Miami, a 24-story residential tower on NE Miami Place in the city’s Arts & Entertainment District. The first residents are set to move-in next month. Both the Excel and the Waldorf Astoria will definitely add to Miami’s distinct avant-garde look and feel!
Up next in this edition: Florida’s high-rise condo safety inspection program has been followed by some but not all condominium buildings, Florida insurance regulators weigh concerns on consolidating three mediation programs into one while agreeing to changes in calculating consumer complaints, FEMA has a familiar face as its new Administrator, even fewer storms are now predicted this hurricane season, how to incorporate artificial intelligence into emergency management, plus Florida home sales are back on a roll even as consumer confidence continues declining. Thanks for reading!
LMA Newsletter of 8-17-26
