MEGA ISSUE: Giannis! Giannis! Giannis!, W Closes, & Soffer's Billion Dollar Bailout
+ W Closes, Pastis Opens in West Palm, Waldorf Astoria Hotel & Residences
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WHAT’S GOOD MIAMI: 6.9.26
Special Report: Happy Giannis Day. Finally!!!!! Miami Heat Sign Giannis
Pat Riley built this city into a basketball destination through sheer force of will and an almost frightening refusal to be outworked. And now, at what everyone assumed was the end of his run, with every chip on the table, he went and got the Greek Freak.
On My Mind: James Dolan Doesn’t Need Your Vote
Congrats, James Dolan. Thanks for showing us what real determination looks like, what it looks like to build when nobody believes, to stay when everyone says sell, to speak your mind when the whole world wants you to shut up.
Beach Business
Jeff Soffer’s Billion Dollar Bailout Of Mercedes Benz Miami
Jeff Soffer’s Fontainebleau Development is bailing out the Mercedes-Benz Miami condo project, stepping in as a partner to close a $1.06 billion construction loan and end the foreclosure litigation.
W South Beach Has Closed
W South Beach is closing August 20, 2026. The Marriott/W affiliation is severed. 337 employees notified. No reopening date announced.
Hospitality Local Insider
The Nora Hotel And Pastis West Palm Beach
The Nora Hotel opens this fall in the heart of the NORA District, a 40-acre mixed-use development rising along North Railroad Avenue just north of downtown.
Real Estate
Luxe Developments We Love: Waldorf Astoria Hotel & Residences Miami
The vertical flex. 300 Biscayne Boulevard. Downtown Miami. A 1,049-foot tower stacking ten glass cubes into the sky above Biscayne Bay.
Happy Giannis Day. Finally!!!!!
Let’s talk about what just happened.
Michael Jordan, the most competitive human being who ever laced up a pair of sneakers, said the most competitive person he ever encountered was Pat Riley.
Pat Riley does not lose gracefully. Pat Riley does not rebuild. Pat Riley does not accept a narrative where Miami isn’t the center of the basketball universe. And Pat Riley, at 79 years old, just scored! The Miami Heat acquired Giannis Anetkoumpo, two-time MVP, one of the best players alive, and made the entire league look stupid for sleeping on us. And not for nothing, we went all in on this prediction months ago in a very public way.
The Celtics thought they had him. An hour before the announcement, Celtics odds on Kalshi shot above 70%. The whole league was watching, the whole internet was watching, Boston was already celebrating — and then Miami walked in and closed.
Because that’s what Miami does.
This isn’t a sports story. This is a city story. Miami attracts. The weather, the culture, the freedom, the feeling, the upside, it’s a different proposition than it was twenty years ago and everybody knows it. Giannis knows it.
Pat Riley built this city into a basketball destination through sheer force of will and an almost frightening refusal to be outworked. And now, at what everyone assumed was the end of his run, with every chip on the table, he went and got the Greek Freak.
Fuck a rebuilding year. Fuck a five-year plan. Fuck the Celtics.
The Knicks are on notice. Boston is on notice. The rest of the East is on notice. And Bam and the Greek Freak are the perfect antidote to the Alien.
Pat Riley isn’t going out anywhere but on top. The same place Miami is going.
Welcome to South Beach, Giannis. Thank g-d you don’t have to live in the US anymore.
What’s Good, Miami. Everything. And now back to our regularly scheduled programming.
On My Mind: James Dolan Doesn’t Need Your Vote
For twenty years, James Dolan was the punchline.
Worst owner in sports. Couldn’t get out of his own way. Couldn’t get out of his father’s shadow. Charles Dolan built Cablevision into an empire. James inherited it and got mocked on ESPN every other week for what he was doing to the Knicks.
But here’s what nobody talks about: he didn’t stop.
While everyone was writing him off, he was building something no one had ever built before. A $2.3 billion sphere in the desert. Not a stadium. Not an arena. Something that had never existed. People said it was ego. People said it was insanity. People said it would bankrupt him.
The Sphere is now the number one grossing venue in the world. 2.2 million tickets. $290 million at the box office. Booked through the end of the year. Abu Dhabi next.
And the Knicks? NBA Champions for the first time in 53 years.
Two days ago, at the championship parade, the mayor of New York gave an eight-minute speech about Knicks history. Passionate. Detailed. The crowd went crazy.
Then James Dolan walked to the podium.
“I don’t need your vote. I don’t need to quote to you about what happened here because if you’re a Knicks fan, you know it already.”
That’s it. That’s the whole speech.
People hated it. Of course they did. But that’s exactly the point. The man has spent twenty years being told he was wrong, being told he was a failure, being told to sell the team, being told the Sphere was a $2.3 billion ego trip, and two days after winning a championship he built from the ground up, he walked to the microphone and said what he’s always said.
I don’t need your vote.
That’s not arrogance. That’s a very specific kind of freedom most people never access, the freedom to be wrong in public, repeatedly, and keep building anyway.
Congrats, James Dolan. Thanks for showing us what real determination looks like, what it looks like to build when nobody believes, to stay when everyone says sell, to speak your mind when the whole world wants you to shut up.
Persistence and determination are omnipotent. Calvin Coolidge said it. James Dolan proved it.
BEACH BUSINESS
Jeff Soffer’s Billion Dollar Bailout of Mercedes Benz Miami
The most important stalled development in Miami just got a lifeline, and the man providing it knows this market better than almost anyone.
Jeff Soffer’s Fontainebleau Development is bailing out the Mercedes-Benz Miami condo project, stepping in as a partner to close a $1.06 billion construction loan and end the foreclosure litigation that had the project frozen. Michael Dell’s BDT & MSD is among the lenders. The deal hasn’t closed yet, but the direction is clear: Soffer is in, the capital stack gets rebuilt, and one of Miami’s most ambitious developments gets back off the ground.
The backstory is messy. Michael Stern’s JDS Development had been in a foreclosure fight with Cottonwood Management since May, after an affiliate allegedly failed to repay an $86 million loan that matured in January 2025. The city of Miami had already notified the developer of a default on a public benefits agreement, including an $8 million fire station JDS was required to build. The whole thing was unraveling fast.
Now it isn’t.
The project itself is worth understanding. This is a 791-unit, two-tower, 67-story development on the Miami waterfront, the first Mercedes-Benz branded condo development in the world. Valued at over $2 billion at completion. 130,000 square feet of amenities, a 174-key hotel, 200,000 square feet of office and wellness space. Designed by SHoP Architects. Sales launched in 2024 starting at $500,000, led by Ryan Serhant’s firm.
Soffer brings more than capital. He and his collaborators understand Miami in a way that outside developers rarely do, the market, the relationships, the capital networks, the patience required to build something that actually gets finished. The Turnberry Resort & Country Club. Turnberry Ocean Club. The Fontainebleau. These are not just trophy assets, they are the connective tissue of South Florida, built and operated by a family that has been shaping this market for generations. His track record isn’t just impressive, it’s specifically Miami. When Soffer gets behind something here, it gets built. And he doesn’t blink.
