Foundation Complete at St. Regis Residences, Sunny Isles Beach: What the South Tower Milestone Actually Tells Buyers

The South Tower of The St. Regis Residences, Sunny Isles Beach, Miami now has a finished foundation. Fortune International Group and Château Group announced on July 30, 2026 that the mat pour ran continuously from July 24 through July 26 at 18801 Collins Avenue, placing roughly 10,000 cubic yards of concrete into a reinforced slab described as 150 feet by 135 feet and 13 feet thick. Coastal Construction is the general contractor. The developers say vertical construction will begin this year.

Every figure in that paragraph comes from the developers. That is not a criticism — construction statistics almost always originate with the project team, because nobody else is standing on the site with the batch tickets. It is simply the first thing a buyer should notice about a milestone announcement, and it sets the frame for everything that follows.

What makes this particular milestone worth writing about is not the concrete. It is the calendar. The developers held their groundbreaking at this site in August 2023. The structural base of the first tower was completed in July 2026. Roughly thirty-five months separate the ceremony from the slab — and for most of that period, a buyer driving past on Collins Avenue would have seen a construction site that looked broadly the same from one quarter to the next.

That is entirely normal for a 62-story oceanfront tower with a deep underground garage. It is also the single most useful thing this story can teach someone who is currently holding a pre-construction contract, or considering one: in a South Florida high-rise, groundbreaking and going vertical are very different events, and the distance between them is measured in years rather than months.

Key Takeaways

• The milestone is real and it is developer-announced. The mat foundation for the South Tower was poured July 24–26, 2026 and announced July 30. The supporting statistics are developer-supplied and were not independently verifiable at publication.
• Below-grade risk is largely behind this tower. Piling, excavation and groundwater work on a beachfront parcel carry the least predictable conditions on a project of this type. Those are now resolved for the South Tower.
• Progress becomes observable from here. Once a tower goes vertical, floor counts are visible to anyone. That is a far better progress signal for a buyer than any announcement.
• The developer's stated completion is late 2028, not 2027. Fortune and Château have described the South Tower as on track for late 2028 in announcements through 2026. Numerous third-party listing pages still show 2027 or earlier.
• The North Tower start has moved within 2026. Described in February and April 2026 as breaking ground in the summer, it was described on July 30 as scheduled for early in the fourth quarter.
• Construction milestones can trigger money. Pre-construction deposit schedules in this market are frequently tied to structural progress. What binds any individual buyer is the schedule in their own executed purchase agreement.

The record

What is established, what is developer-reported, and what is our reading

• Two 62-story towers at 18801 Collins Avenue, Sunny Isles Beach, each planned at 750 feet on a 4.7-acre oceanfront parcelConsistent across developer materials and trade reporting since the March 2022 launch.Verified
• Developed by Fortune International Group and Château Group; Arquitectonica architecture; interiors by Patricia Anastassiadis; landscape by EDSA; Coastal Construction as general contractorConsistent across developer, architect and contractor materials.Verified
• South Tower: 170 residences. North Tower: 150 residencesCurrent developer figures. The South Tower was described as 175 residences at groundbreaking in 2023; a density reduction was approved by the City of Sunny Isles Beach and reported in January 2025.Verified
• The South Tower mat foundation was poured continuously July 24–26, 2026Announced by the developers July 30, 2026 and carried by trade outlets from July 30 onward.Verified
• Approximately 10,000 cubic yards of concrete, about 4 million pounds of reinforcing steel, roughly 1,100 truck deliveries, about 500 workers, six boom pumps over more than 30 hours, and a mat of roughly 150 by 135 feet at 13 feet thickDeveloper-supplied figures. No independent measurement of the pour is publicly available.Reported
• South Tower completion described as late 2028; North Tower groundbreaking described as early in the fourth quarter of 2026Developer statements. The late-2028 completion appears consistently in announcements from December 2025 through 2026. The North Tower start was described as “this summer” in February and April 2026.Reported
• Project financing: a Bank OZK commitment increased to $418.3 million announced in December 2025, and a $113.75 million City National Bank of Florida development loan for the North Tower announced in April 2026Announced by the developers and reported by trade press at the time.Verified
• Sales characterisations have moved: roughly 90% presold in December 2025, “sold out” in February 2026, “nearing sell-out” in April 2026, and remaining residences from approximately $5 million in July 2026All developer statements. We have not verified any sell-through figure, which is not publicly verifiable before closings occur.Reported
• The interval between groundbreaking and completed foundation — not the size of the pour — is the number a pre-construction buyer should take from this announcementOur interpretation, explained below.Analysis

Compiled by TheBuyerRebate.com from the developers' announcement of July 30, 2026, developer statements published December 2025 through July 2026, the project's own press archive, and contemporaneous trade reporting. Sales, schedule and pour statistics are developer characterisations that we have not independently verified.

Why foundation completion matters

A mat foundation is the structural base that transfers the entire load of a tower into the ground. On a beachfront parcel it is preceded by the least forgiving work in the whole programme: deep foundation piles, an excavation that on this project was publicly described as reaching roughly forty feet for the underground garage, groundwater management, and all of it executed between occupied neighbouring buildings on a barrier island.

This is where projects encounter the conditions nobody fully priced. Soil that behaves differently from the borings. Water that arrives faster than the dewatering plan assumed. Neighbouring structures that require monitoring, and sometimes remediation, while you drive piles beside them. In January 2024, contemporaneous coverage of this site reported the use of what was described as the longest pile driver used in Florida to that point. That detail is a reasonable proxy for the difficulty of the below-grade phase here.

When the mat is finished, that category of uncertainty is substantially closed out for that tower. What remains is work that is difficult, expensive and slow — but far more predictable. Structural crews pour floors on a repeating cycle. Facade, elevators and mechanical systems are procurement and logistics problems. None of it is trivial, and all of it is more forecastable than what happens forty feet below sea level on an oceanfront lot.

There is a second, quieter reason the milestone matters, and it is the one we would emphasise to a buyer. Vertical construction is legible. Anyone can count floors. Anyone can photograph the same corner every month. For the first time since 2023, the progress of this tower becomes something a buyer can independently verify without relying on anybody's press release — including ours.

Construction sequence

Where the South Tower sits in a typical high-rise programme

• CompleteSite preparation and demolition of the previous structureDone
• CompleteExcavation and below-grade work, including deep foundation piles and the underground garage excavationDone
• Jul 24–26, 2026Mat foundation poured — the current milestoneDone
• NextVertical construction begins; tower crane in full operationAhead
• NextStructure rises above grade, floor by floor, on a repeating cycleAhead
• NextTopping off at the highest structural floorAhead
• NextBuilding enclosure — glazing and facade installationAhead
• NextInterior construction, amenity build-out and systems commissioningAhead
• NextTemporary Certificate of Occupancy issued by the building departmentAhead
• NextClosings begin and deeds are recordedAhead

This is the general sequence used on South Florida high-rise condominium projects. It is not a schedule, not a commitment, and not specific to this project beyond the first three rows. Stages overlap in practice — interior work commonly begins on lower floors while the structure is still rising. No stage in this sequence obliges any developer to deliver on a particular date.

Pour figures per the developers' announcement of July 30, 2026. Groundbreaking dated to August 2023 per contemporaneous trade reporting; some third-party listing pages incorrectly date it to 2024. Completion timing is a developer projection, not a contractual commitment. TheBuyerRebate.com has not independently verified the pour statistics or the schedule.

Does this reduce construction execution risk?

Partly, and it is worth being exact about which part.

What the milestone does establish

It establishes that the hardest and least predictable physical work on the South Tower has been completed, that the contractor was able to mobilise a very large simultaneous pour without a documented failure, and that the project could fund and execute that operation in July 2026. Read alongside the financing announced in December 2025 and April 2026, it is consistent with a project that is capitalised and moving. That is a meaningful pattern, and buyers are entitled to take some comfort from it.

What it does not establish

It does not establish a delivery date. Structural pace, glazing and facade supply, elevator and mechanical procurement, labour availability, hurricane-season interruptions, inspection cycles and the certificate of occupancy process all sit ahead of this tower, and none of them is resolved by a foundation. It says nothing about the finished quality of a residence, nothing about the association budget that will govern the building afterwards, and nothing about whether the price a specific buyer is being quoted is a good one.

It also changes nothing contractual. The purchase agreement did not become more favourable on July 26 because concrete was placed. The outside delivery date, the deposit schedule, the developer's rights to modify plans, and the buyer's remedies are exactly what they were before — and they are the only documents in this story that bind anybody.

TheBuyerRebate.com analysis, offered as a framework for reading construction milestones generally. It is not a review of any individual purchase agreement.

The delivery date question

This is where a buyer can be misled without anyone intending it.

Fortune and Château have described the South Tower as on track for completion in late 2028. That framing appears in their announcements from December 2025 onward and was repeated through 2026. It is the developers' current public position and it is internally consistent with a July 2026 foundation.

Meanwhile, a substantial amount of third-party material still online describes this project as delivering in 2027, and some pages still show 2026. Those figures were accurate when they were written — the project's early collateral did point at an earlier delivery — and they were never updated. A buyer researching this building today can easily read three different completion years within ten minutes, none of them flagged as stale.

The instructive comparison is a block and a half down the same beach. Bentley Residences Miami, at 18401 Collins Avenue, is also a 62-story oceanfront tower and is also built by Coastal Construction. Its mat foundation was completed in November 2025. By late May 2026 it had reached level seven and its team described a pace of roughly one floor every five to six working days. Its publicly stated completion is 2028. We covered that milestone in our Bentley Residences construction update, and the two projects together give a buyer something genuinely useful: a local, current, same-contractor reference for how long the climb takes.

We are not going to convert that comparison into a prediction about this building, because construction pace varies with floor plate, crew, weather and a dozen other things. But it does support one plain conclusion: a completion year for the South Tower that sits in 2027 is not consistent with a foundation finished in July 2026, and any source still publishing 2027 should be treated as out of date rather than as a competing view.

What buyers should watch over the coming months

Whether the crane goes up, and when the floors start

The developers say vertical construction begins this year. That is the first testable statement in the announcement. A tower crane erected and a first structural floor poured are both visible from Collins Avenue and from the beach. If the sequence slips well past the year, that is information — not necessarily bad information, but information the buyer obtained rather than received.

The pace per floor, once it is established

After the first several floors, a rhythm emerges. Take a photograph from the same position each month. Two or three data points will tell you more about the delivery trajectory than any announcement, and the arithmetic is simple: floors remaining, multiplied by days per floor, plus enclosure and interiors.

Whether a deposit is tied to a structural milestone

This one is financial rather than observational, and it is easy to overlook. South Florida pre-construction deposit schedules commonly stage payments against time and against construction progress, and third-party marketing material for this project has published a South Tower schedule that includes an instalment tied to the pouring of a specific upper floor. We have not verified that against a current purchase agreement and no buyer should rely on a marketing summary for a payment obligation. The point is the category: if your schedule contains a milestone-triggered instalment, vertical construction starting means a payment date is now approaching, and you should know which milestone and roughly when.

The North Tower's start date

In February and April 2026 the developers described the North Tower as breaking ground in the summer. On July 30 they described it as scheduled for early in the fourth quarter. That is a modest shift within the same year and is unremarkable on its own. It is worth tracking because the second phase is where a South Tower buyer's future neighbours, construction noise, amenity access during build-out and eventual resale competition all come from. It also matters for anyone considering the North Tower itself, which is the collection currently being sold.

What the association is going to cost

Delivery is not the finish line; it is the handover to a condominium association that owns the budget, the reserves and the service contracts. Branded service programmes are funded by residents after closing. The estimated operating budget and the reserve assumptions sit in the offering documents, and they deserve at least as much attention as the delivery date. Our reporting on the Marquis Miami association litigation is a useful illustration of what those records can reveal, and of what it costs a buyer not to have read them.

Project overview

The verified profile of the project, as it stands at publication, is straightforward.

• Location. 18801 Collins Avenue, Sunny Isles Beach, Miami-Dade County — a 4.7-acre oceanfront parcel with 435 linear feet of Atlantic frontage, between Bal Harbour to the south and Golden Beach to the north.
• Developers. Fortune International Group, led by Edgardo Defortuna, and Château Group, led by Manuel Grosskopf. The same partnership previously delivered The Ritz-Carlton Residences, Sunny Isles Beach.
• Design and construction. Architecture by Arquitectonica; interiors by São Paulo-based Patricia Anastassiadis; landscape by EDSA; Coastal Construction as general contractor.
• Programme. Two towers, each planned at 62 stories and 750 feet. South Tower: 170 residences. North Tower: 150 residences. More than 70,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor amenities.
• Announced amenities. Two public-facing restaurants, a full-floor private spa, indoor and outdoor pools, a fitness and wellness centre, a private residents' club, children's programming and St. Regis Butler Service. Amenity programmes described before delivery are subject to change.
• Status. South Tower foundation complete; vertical construction stated to begin in 2026; completion described by the developers as late 2028. North Tower groundbreaking described as early in the fourth quarter of 2026. Remaining residences described as starting at approximately $5 million.
• Brand relationship. The residences are not owned, developed or sold by Marriott International. The developer entity uses the St. Regis marks under licence. This is standard for branded residences and it is worth understanding: the brand is a service and licensing arrangement, not the party building or selling the building.

That last point is the one buyers most often compress. A brand licence has a term and renewal conditions, and the service programme attached to it has an operating budget that residents fund. Those terms live in the condominium documents. We make the same point in our coverage of the Brickell project that shares the flag — the reported $47 million penthouse contract at St. Regis Residences, Miami — because the two buildings share a name and nothing else structural.

Editorial perspective

Construction milestone announcements occupy an unusual place in real estate coverage. Unlike a reported sale price, the underlying event is not in dispute: a foundation was poured, and drone photography of the site exists. What is doing persuasive work is not the fact but the framing — the implication that a project which has reached a milestone is therefore a project that will arrive on time.

Our reading is that this milestone genuinely improves the risk profile of the South Tower, and that it improves it in a narrow and specific way. The hardest physical unknowns are now behind it. A capable contractor executed a large operation. The financing announced over the past eight months is consistent with a project drawing on real capital. For an existing contract holder who has been watching a hole in the ground since 2023, this is the moment the building starts becoming a building.

What we would resist is the compression that usually follows: milestone reached, therefore delivery assured, therefore no need to re-read anything. The three-year interval between groundbreaking and foundation at this very site is the argument against that reasoning. Nothing went publicly wrong during those thirty-five months. That is simply how long the work takes — and a buyer who calibrated their expectations to the groundbreaking ceremony in 2023 has already learned something about the difference between an event and a schedule.

We work only for the buyer and we do not treat developer announcements as diligence. Our buyer representative team approaches transaction risk with a legal-informed perspective, and title and closing coordination may be available through an affiliated title resource where appropriate. Contract-specific legal questions should be directed to qualified Florida counsel.

Conclusion

The South Tower at The St. Regis Residences, Sunny Isles Beach has a finished foundation, and it is about to become one of the more visible construction sites on that stretch of Collins Avenue. That is a genuine step forward, and it is the point at which a buyer stops depending on announcements and starts being able to see the answer.

For anyone holding a contract here, the productive response is not reassurance but a short list: confirm the outside delivery date in your agreement, confirm whether any remaining deposit is tied to a structural milestone, read the estimated operating budget and reserve assumptions, and start photographing the tower from the same spot each month. For anyone considering the North Tower collection now being sold, add one item ahead of all of those — get independent representation in place before you register with the sales gallery, because that sequence cannot be repaired afterwards.

Buyers comparing the wider market will find the neighbourhood context in our Sunny Isles Beach buyer rebate guide, and the mechanics of registration, deposits and diligence across new development in our Miami pre-construction buyer rebate guide.

Sources & Methodology

1. Fortune International Group and Château Group, developer announcement dated July 30, 2026, distributed through trade press channels — completion of the South Tower mat foundation pour; pour dates of July 24–26, 2026; the pour statistics reproduced in this article; 170-residence South Tower and 150-residence North Tower; North Tower groundbreaking scheduled for early in the fourth quarter; more than 70,000 square feet of amenities; remaining residences from approximately $5 million; attributed statements from Edgardo Defortuna, Manuel Grosskopf and Tom Murphy.
2. Florida YIMBY, August 1, 2026 — one of the sources consulted during our reporting, carrying the same milestone and accompanying site photography.
3. Developer announcements published December 2025, February 2026 and April 2026 — South Tower described as on track for completion in late 2028; North Tower described as slated to break ground in summer 2026; projected combined sell-out in excess of $3 billion; sell-through characterisations of approximately 90% presold, then sold out, then nearing sell-out.
4. Bank OZK financing announced December 2025 — commitment increased from $219 million to $418.3 million.
5. City National Bank of Florida development loan of $113.75 million for the North Tower, announced April 2026, arranged through Berkadia.
6. The project's own published press archive at srresidencessunnyislesbeach.com, consulted August 1, 2026 — used to establish the project chronology from the March 2022 sales launch through the August 2023 groundbreaking, the January 2024 report of deep foundation work, the February 2024 North Tower sales launch, and the January 2025 report of approved site plan revisions reducing density.
7. Contemporaneous trade reporting of the August 2023 groundbreaking, at which the South Tower was described as 175 residences and approximately 75% sold.
8. Trade reporting of Bentley Residences Miami at 18401 Collins Avenue — mat foundation completed November 2025; vertical construction reported at level seven in late May 2026 at a stated pace of roughly one floor every five to six working days; stated completion 2028; Coastal Construction as general contractor. Used solely as a local pacing reference.
9. Third-party listing, portal and brokerage pages consulted August 1, 2026, which variously describe the project as completing in 2026, 2027 or 2028, the South Tower as containing 170 or 194 residences, and the project as containing 320, 336 or 352 residences in total. Cited to demonstrate the inconsistency, not as authority.

Methodology note. The construction milestone described in this article was announced by the developers on July 30, 2026. All quantitative detail about the pour — volume, steel tonnage, truckloads, worker count, pump count and mat dimensions — is developer-supplied and cannot be independently verified from public records; we have labelled it accordingly rather than presenting it as established fact. Completion dates, groundbreaking timing for the North Tower and all sell-through characterisations are developer statements and are projections or commercial descriptions rather than commitments. Permit-level records for the vertical structure were not retrievable from public online sources at the time of publication; a buyer can request the current permit and inspection status directly from the City of Sunny Isles Beach Building Department. Where public sources conflict on residence counts or completion timing, we have shown the conflict rather than selecting one figure and presenting it as settled. The deposit-schedule reference in this article describes a category of risk observed in South Florida pre-construction generally and a schedule published by third-party marketing material; it is not a description of any executed agreement, and the schedule in a buyer's own purchase agreement governs. Unit count, unit mix, amenities, delivery timing and pricing are subject to change and are governed by the recorded condominium documents and the purchase agreement, not by marketing materials or news coverage.

Questions buyers are asking

What construction milestone has St. Regis Residences, Sunny Isles Beach reached?

The South Tower's mat foundation is complete. The developers announced on July 30, 2026 that the pour ran continuously from July 24 through July 26, placing approximately 10,000 cubic yards of concrete into a reinforced mat measuring roughly 150 feet by 135 feet and 13 feet thick. The South Tower is the first of two planned 62-story towers at 18801 Collins Avenue. The figures describing the pour are developer-supplied and we have not independently verified them.

Why does completing a foundation matter to a condominium buyer?

Below-grade work is where the least predictable risks sit: soil and groundwater conditions, deep piles, excavation next to occupied neighbouring towers, and coastal water table management. Those unknowns are resolved once the mat is poured. It also changes what a buyer can observe. Vertical construction produces floor counts that anyone can watch and compare against the pace the developer describes, which is a far better progress indicator than a press release.

Does a completed foundation guarantee that the building will be delivered on time?

No. A foundation removes one category of risk and leaves the rest in place: structural pace, facade and glazing supply, elevator and mechanical procurement, labour availability, storm season interruptions, inspection cycles and the certificate of occupancy process. No construction milestone changes the contractual position either. The date that carries legal weight is the outside delivery date written into the purchase agreement, which is normally later than any date used in marketing.

When is the South Tower at St. Regis Residences, Sunny Isles Beach expected to be completed?

The developers' own announcements through 2026 describe the South Tower as on track for completion in late 2028. A number of third-party listing and portal pages still show 2027, and a few still show 2026. Those older dates appear to be stale rather than competing information. A buyer should work from the developer's current written statement and, above all, from the outside delivery date in the purchase agreement.

What normally happens next in high-rise construction after the foundation?

The usual sequence is vertical construction and tower crane operation, the structure rising above grade floor by floor, topping off, building enclosure and glazing, interior construction and system commissioning, a temporary certificate of occupancy, and then closings. This is a general sequence rather than a schedule. Stages overlap in practice, and no part of it commits the developer to a date.

Can a buyer receive a rebate on a purchase at St. Regis Residences, Sunny Isles Beach?

Where the developer pays a buyer-agent commission and independent representation is in place before registration, eligible buyers receive up to 50% of our buyer-agent commission back at closing, subject to transaction terms, lender/closing requirements, broker/project cooperation where applicable, and buyer eligibility. Timing usually decides the outcome. If you register at the sales gallery on your own first, the developer may decline to recognise an outside broker on your purchase, and that is not reliably reversible.

Editorial Note

This article is based on the developers' announcement of July 30, 2026 and on publicly available material reviewed as of August 1, 2026. TheBuyerRebate.com has not independently verified the pour statistics, the sell-through characterisations or the stated completion timing, all of which originate with the development team.

We will update this article as verifiable construction progress becomes observable, including the start of vertical construction and the North Tower groundbreaking.

Related Intelligence

• St. Regis Residences, Sunny Isles Beach — Buyer Rebate & Project Guide Our dedicated project page: buyer information, registration protection and a rebate calculator at this building's price points.
• Bentley Residences Miami Construction Update: Passing Level 7 The nearest current benchmark for vertical pace — another 62-story Sunny Isles tower built by the same general contractor.
• Sunny Isles Beach Buyer Rebate Guide The oceanfront market from Haulover to Golden Beach: new development and resale together.
• The Ritz-Carlton Residences, Sunny Isles Beach The delivered project from the same development partnership — useful for buyers assessing execution history.
• Miami Pre-Construction Buyer Rebate Registration timing, deposit structures and diligence across South Florida's new-development market.
• St. Regis Residences, Miami — Reported $47M Penthouse Contract The Brickell project that shares the flag, and why a shared brand does not mean a shared building.
• Mandarin Oriental Residences Boca Raton Faces Foreclosure What happens to committed buyer deposits when a branded project's financing fails.
• All News & Buyer Intelligence Development, construction, legal and market analysis for South Florida buyers.