Building facts
- Address
- 834 Ocean Drive
- Neighborhood
- South Beach
- Year built
- 1923
- Floors
- 5
- Status
- Completed
- Pricing
- Starting at $440,000
Verified 24 August 2026Miami-Dade County Property Appraiser1 source
Casa Grande South Beach — photography to follow
Building facts
- Address
- 834 Ocean Drive
- Neighborhood
- Miami Beach
- Year built
- 1923
- Floors
- 5
- Residences
- 45
- Status
- Delivered — condominium in a 1923 building
Key Takeaways
- Every apartment here that has sold twice is worth more than it was — all 35 homes with a repeat sale on record are up, median +153.1%. Not one is down. That is not a claim I can make about any other building in this section.
- The 1997 conversion buyers did extraordinarily well — 26 of them have since resold. All 26 gained — median +168.8%, ranging from +59.5% to +314.7%.
- The whole building sold for $3,721,300 in December 1997 — 27 apartments, at a median of $192 per square foot. One apartment on its own fetched $1,120,000 in April 2025.
- The building record was set in 2025, not in a past boom — $1,120,000 for a 900 sq ft home — $1,244 per square foot, the highest figure in the building’s 33-year record.
- Seven of the 47 folios are parking spaces, not apartments — units SP-1 to SP-7, 130 to 150 square feet, assessed about $15,650 each. Parking here is deeded and sold separately — check whether a space comes with the apartment.
- No home here is classified as lodging — all 38 apartments are recorded as RESIDENTIAL : CONDOMINIUM. The declaration contains no lodging-classified folio at all.
Casa Grande South Beach, by the numbers
Starting at $440,000. Source: the building record on this site.
834 Ocean Drive, Miami Beach, Florida 33139 | Neighborhood: South Beach
Four blocks north of here, The Carlyle sold its apartments off in 2006 and almost every buyer who has since sold took a loss. Casa Grande sold its apartments off in 1997. Every single owner here who has sold has made money. Two Art Deco buildings on the same street, in the same category, with opposite outcomes — and the difference is very largely the year the first deed was signed.
What the county records at 834 Ocean Drive
The Miami-Dade County Property Appraiser holds 47 folios at 834 Ocean Drive, all in one declaration, CASA GRANDE CONDO. The common-element shares close at 100.0200%, so the pull is complete.
Those 47 folios are not 47 apartments, and getting this wrong would distort every figure on the page. Seven of them are parking spaces — units SP-1 to SP-7, between 130 and 150 square feet, assessed at about $15,650 each. The county classifies them as residential condominium exactly like the apartments, and their legal descriptions contain no parking keyword at all; only their size gives them away. Two more folios are retail. That leaves 38 apartments.
It is a practical point as well as a methodological one: parking at this building is deeded separately and can be bought and sold on its own. If you are looking here, establish early whether a space comes with the apartment.
The 38 homes run 550 to 2,010 square feet, median 660, in tightly repeated plans — 570, 610, 620 and 780 sq ft at four units each. The mix is eight studios, 24 one-bedrooms, four two-bedrooms and two three-bedrooms. All 38 are classified RESIDENTIAL — TOTAL VALUE : CONDOMINIUM — RESIDENTIAL; there is no lodging-classified folio anywhere in this declaration.
For 2026 the county assesses the apartments at $15,739,132, a median of $342,175 across a range of $301,703 to $1,134,787.
Thirty-five apartments, thirty-five gains
The record holds 106 qualified transactions stretching back to 1993, which is deep enough to follow individual apartments through several owners. Three portfolio deeds have been excluded, including one of $8,500,000 across three folios in 2019 that would otherwise publish as a single-apartment sale.
The conversion happened in December 1997: 27 apartments sold that month for $3,721,300 in total, at a median of $192 per square foot, in a range of $168 to $375.
Twenty-six of those 27 buyers have since sold. Every one of them gained.
| Measure | 1997 conversion cohort |
|---|---|
| Apartments sold in December 1997 | 27 |
| Of those, resold since | 26 |
| Number that resold at a loss | 0 |
| Median gain | +168.8% |
| Range | +59.5% to +314.7% |
Widening to every apartment in the building with two or more qualified sales on record — 35 of them, not just the 1997 cohort — gives the same answer: 35 up, none down, median +153.1%.
Some individual histories show the shape of it. Unit 402, 900 square feet, sold for $320,000 in 1993, $660,000 in 2011, $745,000 in 2020 and $1,120,000 in April 2025 — a rise from $356 to $1,244 per square foot across 32 years, and the highest per-foot figure in the building’s record. Unit 507, 820 square feet, went from $168,800 in 1997 to $700,000 in 2007, a gain of 314.7%. Unit 306 has traded five times since 1997 and is up 263.7%.
I want to be careful about what this does and does not mean. It does not mean this building is a better building than The Carlyle. It means the 1997 entry price — a median of $192 a foot — was low enough that almost nothing could go wrong, while The Carlyle’s 2006 entry of up to $1,370 a foot was high enough that almost nothing could go right. The record here is mostly a fact about when people bought, not about what they bought. A buyer today is entering at neither of those prices.
What is the building doing now?
| Year | Qualified sales | Median price | Median $/sq ft |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 2 | $625,000 | $670 |
| 2024 | 0 | — | — |
| 2025 | 4 | $455,000 | $682 |
| 2026 to date | 1 | $375,000 | $636 |
Seven qualified sales across four years against 38 apartments is roughly one home in 22 per year, with nothing at all in 2024. The per-foot medians — $670, then $682, then $636 — sit within a narrow band, but on two, four and one sales respectively. That is nowhere near enough to establish a direction and I am not going to draw one.
What the recent record does support is a level: the building is trading around $636 to $682 per square foot, with a single 2025 outlier at $1,244 that set the building record. The median last-sale year across all 38 apartments is 2014, so many owners here are holding gains that have never been tested by a sale.
Who this building suits, and who it does not
This suits a buyer who wants an Ocean Drive address at a genuinely accessible price. A median assessed value of $342,175 and recent sales from $375,000 to $460,000 put this among the cheapest ways onto this street, and the apartments are real one-bedrooms rather than studios.
It suits you badly if you are extrapolating from the history above. The +168.8% belongs to people who bought at $192 a square foot in 1997. You would be buying at roughly $650. The record is evidence that this building holds value well; it is not a forecast, and nothing on this page should be read as one.
Liquidity is moderate by the standards of this section — better than Boulan or Bentley Beach, well behind YotelPAD — but one blank year in four is a reminder that the market here is thin.
On short-term rental: no folio in this declaration carries a lodging classification, and that settles nothing either way. Florida’s state preemption, the City of Miami Beach’s zoning and licensing rules and the condominium declaration decide it together, and Miami Beach enforces hard. Confirm all three with your own lawyer before relying on rental income.
If you are selling here, you are in an unusually strong evidential position: the building has never recorded a repeat sale at a loss, and you can show that. Price against the 2023–26 per-foot band rather than against the 2025 record sale, which was a larger apartment at a figure nothing else here has approached. And confirm whether your parking space is a separate folio — if it is, it is a separate asset and should be priced as one.
Casa Grande — Frequently Asked Questions
How many apartments are there at Casa Grande?
Thirty-eight. The county records 47 folios in the declaration, but seven of those are parking spaces of 130 to 150 square feet and two are retail units. The parking folios are classified as residential condominium exactly like the apartments, so a count taken straight from the classification would say 45.
Does parking come with an apartment here?
Not automatically. Seven parking spaces are held as their own folios, assessed at about $15,650 each, and can be bought and sold separately from the apartments. Establish early whether a particular unit includes one.
Have apartments here gone up in value?
Every one that has sold twice has. All 35 apartments with a repeat sale on record are up, at a median of +153.1%, and not one has resold at a loss. Of the 26 buyers from the December 1997 conversion who have since sold, all 26 gained, at a median of +168.8%.
What do apartments here cost now?
Recent qualified sales run roughly $375,000 to $460,000, at $636 to $682 per square foot. The building record is $1,120,000 for a 900 sq ft home in April 2025, which works out at $1,244 per square foot — well above anything else in the record.
Does that history mean this is a good investment now?
It does not follow, and I would not present it that way. The 1997 buyers entered at a median of $192 per square foot; a buyer today enters at roughly $650. What the record supports is that this building has held its value unusually consistently. It is not a forecast.
How big are the apartments?
From 550 to 2,010 square feet, median 660. The mix is eight studios, 24 one-bedrooms, four two-bedrooms and two three-bedrooms, in tightly repeated plans of 570, 610, 620 and 780 square feet.
Can I rent a unit here on a short-term basis?
The county record does not answer that. No folio in this declaration carries a lodging classification, and that establishes nothing either way — a use code is a tax category, not a permission. Florida’s state preemption, City of Miami Beach zoning and licensing, and the condominium declaration decide it. Take your own legal advice.
Sources and further reading
Interested in selling at Casa Grande South Beach?
Learn more about selling your condo at Casa Grande South Beach with Josh Stein.
Art Deco Condo Buildings in South Beach
Thinking about Casa Grande South Beach?
I have sold South Florida property since 2002, more than $1 billion of it. Ask me for the recorded declaration, what has genuinely closed, or a straight answer on whether this building fits what you are after.
Josh Stein · Florida real estate sales associate, license SL3057661 · (305) 695-8257 · hello@joshsteinrealtor.com
Casa Grande South Beach in the Miami Beach Architectural District
The Miami Beach Architectural District, almost always called the Art Deco District, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 14, 1979. It runs from the Atlantic Ocean west to Alton Road, and from 6th Street north to the Collins Canal and Dade Boulevard. Depending on how you count, it holds between the over 800 properties built between 1923 and 1943 cited by the City of Miami Beach and roughly 960 historic buildings counted elsewhere. Either way it is the largest collection of Art Deco architecture anywhere in the world.
Casa Grande South Beach dates to 1923 and stands at 834 Ocean Drive. Buildings of this vintage in South Beach are usually Mediterranean Revival rather than Deco proper, the style that dominated Miami Beach before Art Deco arrived. Stucco walls, barrel-tile roofs, arched openings and courtyard plans are the tells.
What it costs to own here: the three-story rule
Florida milestone inspection requirements apply to condominium and cooperative buildings three stories or more in height, at 30 years of age, or 25 years where the local enforcement agency cites conditions such as salt-water proximity (Fla. Stat. 553.899). HB 913 (2025) refined the trigger to buildings with three or more occupied stories, excluding garages and non-habitable areas, and applied the same threshold to Structural Integrity Reserve Studies, required every 10 years.
At 5 stories, Casa Grande South Beach is covered by the milestone inspection and SIRS requirements. Ask for the milestone inspection report, the reserve study, the current reserve balance and the minutes covering any assessment discussion before you go under contract. A building that has completed its inspection and funded its reserves is worth materially more than an identical one that has not, and the discount on the latter is rarely as large as the eventual bill.
Renovating in a historic district
Interiors are generally straightforward. Exterior alterations are not: work visible from the street in a Miami Beach local historic district goes through the city Historic Preservation Board review process, codified in Miami Beach Code Chapter 118, Article X. Miami-Dade is also a High-Velocity Hurricane Zone, so impact-rated windows and doors are required, and inside the district those products have to satisfy preservation review on appearance as well as code. Budget more time than a comparable renovation off the beach, and use trades who have been through the process before.
There is a second layer buyers routinely miss. Local Miami Beach designation governs day-to-day alterations. National Register listing is what triggers the stronger state-law protections under SB 1730 and SB 1526. Many buildings here are locally designated but not individually National Register listed, and the two are not interchangeable. Ask which applies to this specific building before assuming it is protected.
Is the district protected from demolition?
Substantially, yes. The Florida Resiliency and Safe Structures Act (SB 1526, 2024), which allows owners to demolish and replace certain non-conforming coastal buildings, explicitly excludes structures on the National Register and several locally designated Miami Beach neighbourhoods including Ocean Drive and the Art Deco District. The 2025 Live Local update, SB 1730, effective July 1 2025, caps development inside National Register districts at the maximum height allowable within a three-quarter-mile radius and permits facade replication. Its protections attach to National Register districts rather than to buildings that are only locally designated.
Why supply here can never grow
The historic district southern boundary is 6th Street. That one line explains the entire South Beach price map. Everything south of it, including Continuum, Apogee, Portofino Tower, Icon South Beach, Murano Grande and Five Park, sits outside the preservation overlay, which is why 40-plus-story towers were legally possible there and nowhere in the blocks immediately north. Inside the district, the two and three-story stock is permanently capped. New Art Deco cannot be built. It can only be restored.
The neighborhood around Casa Grande South Beach
- Art Deco Welcome Center, 1001 Ocean Drive, the Miami Design Preservation League base. Daily 90-minute walking tours run $35 for adults and $30 for students and seniors; a self-guided audio tour is $25.
- Ocean Drive, the photographic core of the district, including the Colony Hotel at 736 Ocean Drive and its much-photographed neon.
- Espanola Way, three blocks of Mediterranean Revival, pedestrianised at weekends.
- Lincoln Road, the pedestrian mall from Washington to Alton, designed by Morris Lapidus in the 1960s.
- Collins Avenue, the Streamline Moderne hotel corridor running north toward the Raleigh redevelopment at 18th Street.
Who buys in the Art Deco district
Three buyers, consistently. Design-motivated primary and second-home purchasers, for whom this is the only walkable, ocean-adjacent product in Miami Beach at anything near this price point. Cost-conscious buyers deliberately targeting sub-three-story buildings to stay outside the milestone and reserve regime. And preservation-minded owners who treat design review as the price of a protected streetscape rather than as an obstacle.
Two practical notes. South Beach transacts at a high cash rate, and small older condominium buildings are frequently non-warrantable for conventional financing, so confirm financing early rather than late. And adaptive reuse has decisively proved the value thesis: the Shore Club restored its 1939 Art Deco building alongside a new tower and put a penthouse under contract north of $120 million, while the Rosewood Raleigh redevelopment is asking $150 million. Historic fabric is now the premium, not the constraint.
Frequently asked questions
How big is the Miami Beach Art Deco District?
The Miami Beach Architectural District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 14, 1979. It runs from the Atlantic Ocean west to Alton Road and from 6th Street north to the Collins Canal and Dade Boulevard. Counts range from the City of Miami Beach figure of over 800 properties built between 1923 and 1943 to roughly 960 historic buildings, depending on the counting method. It is the largest collection of Art Deco architecture in the world.
Can you actually buy an Art Deco condo in Miami Beach, or are they all hotels?
You can buy them, but most of the famous Ocean Drive frontage is hotels. Genuine residential Art Deco condominiums cluster one to three blocks inland, on Meridian, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Jefferson and Euclid Avenues and along Espanola Way. A third category, condo-hotels, can be owned but operates as hospitality and is underwritten differently. Always confirm which of the three a specific building is before you make an offer.
Does Casa Grande South Beach have to do Florida milestone inspections?
Yes. The requirement applies to condominium and cooperative buildings three stories or more in height at 30 years of age, or 25 years where the local agency cites conditions such as salt-water proximity, under Fla. Stat. 553.899. At 5 stories this building is covered, and the same threshold applies to the Structural Integrity Reserve Study. Ask for the milestone report, the reserve study and the current reserve balance before going under contract.
Are Miami Beach Art Deco buildings protected from demolition?
Substantially. Florida 2024 Resiliency and Safe Structures Act, SB 1526, which allows demolition and replacement of certain non-conforming coastal buildings, explicitly excludes National Register structures and several locally designated Miami Beach neighbourhoods including Ocean Drive and the Art Deco District. The 2025 Live Local update, SB 1730, added height caps and facade replication rules inside National Register districts. Note that protections differ between National Register listing and local-only designation.
Can I renovate an Art Deco condo in Miami Beach?
Interiors are generally straightforward. Exterior alterations visible from the street go through the City of Miami Beach Historic Preservation Board review process under Chapter 118, Article X of the city code. Miami-Dade is a High-Velocity Hurricane Zone, so impact-rated windows and doors are required, and inside a historic district those products must also satisfy preservation review on appearance. Allow more time than an equivalent renovation elsewhere in the city.
Why does South of Fifth have towers when the Art Deco District has none?
Because the historic district southern boundary is 6th Street. Everything south of that line, including Continuum, Apogee, Portofino Tower, Icon South Beach, Murano Grande and Five Park, sits outside the preservation overlay, so high-rise development was legally possible there and not in the blocks immediately north. That single boundary explains both the South of Fifth premium and why Art Deco district supply is permanently capped.
Is financing harder on a small older Art Deco building?
Often, yes. Small older condominium buildings are frequently non-warrantable for conventional financing, which is one reason South Beach transacts at a high cash rate. Establish financing early rather than late, and ask the association for the documents a lender will want before you are under contract.
Related coverage
Part of Miami Condo Hotels.