What’s inside this new 51-story Miami hotel? You may not expect it. Here’s a sneak peek
When Miami’s newest hotel opens in June, it’ll look like just another high-rise. But step inside the 51-story building and you’ll discover a Turkish bath, 18,000-square-foot gym and a steakhouse run by a former Wynwood chef.
Gale Miami Hotel & Residences, across from the Kaseya Center, opens June 1.
We got a sneak peek ahead of the debut:
What you’ll find at the Gale Hotel
Guests staying at the Gale Miami Hotel & Residences, 601 NE First Ave., can enjoy a hammam — a Turkish bath that uses steam instead of thermal water to cleanse one’s skin to release energy.
And the gym has more weights and machines than many fitness clubs.
The calories you’ll be burning will come from one of three restaurants at the hotel, including a steakhouse run by former executive chef at Wynwood Diner, Erhan Ozkaya.
The Gale has 160 hotel rooms: studios and one or two bedrooms. Hotel rooms are available for daily bookings as well as short-term rentals. Some come with fully equipped kitchens and washer and dryers.
There’s also a 20,000-square-foot conference center on the eighth floor, as well as three floors of exhibition space. Wood on the walls gives it a feeling of nature in the middle of downtown.
Other amenities include a wellness program, yoga lounge, steam room and sauna, a welcome lounge, and beach access through the Miami Beach Gale.
What’s near the Gale Hotel?
The Gale is near the Kaseya Center, the Miami Worldcenter complex, the Freedom Tower, Bayside Marketplace, Bayfront Park, Perez Art Museum and PortMiami.
The property is seeking to make the most of its PortMiami neighbor, hoping to lure cruise passengers for a stay. The hotel is talking with cruise ship companies to develop agreements, according to the hotel owners.
The hotel also is two blocks from the downtown Miami Brightline station.
What about the restaurants?
Gale Chef Erhan Ozkaya, from Iskenderun, Turkey, was influenced by his grandparents. He first started to experiment with Turkish flavors and ingredients in their kitchen.
His first restaurant at the Gale is Italian and opening in July. The ground-floor, 9,000-square-foot space will have indoor and outdoor seating, a 360-degree bar and an outdoor garden. The restaurant can seat up to 240 people.
An American-style steakhouse and lounge is on the ninth floor and equipped to age meat cuts in-house, Ozkaya told the Miami Herald. The restaurant seats 190 and has a private dining area for 90 that can be reserved. There’s also a ninth-floor Mediterranean restaurant, which will have a retractable roof and outdoor terrace. And that will be where Ozkaya returns to his roots, incorporating Turkish flavors.
Ozkaya is familiar with Miami’s food scene. He worked at The Bazaar by Jose Andres, Mandolin Aegean Bistro, and most recently Joia Beach Club on Watson Island. He had less success with Skorpios, a midtown Midtown restaurant that lasted less than a year due to a dispute with the landlord.
Ozkaya also did stints in Turkey at the Hilton Mersin and Hilton Istanbul.
Who runs the Gale Hotel?
The Gale, four years in the making, is owned by GFO Investments, a wealth management firm focused on hospitality.
Russell W. Galbut, chairman of GFO, and his daughter Marisa Galbut, president of GFO, run the firm and oversaw the hotel’s development along with Howard Sherman, GFO’s managing principal. Miami Beach-based Urban Robot Associates did the interior design.
Russell Galbut is on the board of directors of Norwegian Cruise Line. Sherman is the former president and CEO of Oceania Cruises, and in 2003 was one of its first employees.
The Galbut family goes way back in South Florida. Russell Galbut was born in Miami Beach in the 1950s. His grandparents, Abraham and Bessie Galbut, after arriving in the early 1930s, owned an entire corner of the Fifth Street and Washington Avenue intersection, eventually running a newsstand, the first auto tag agency on the Beach, a travel agency, a driving school and a law firm.
His mom, also named Bessie Galbut, was a prominent philanthropist. When she died at 92 in 2015, a Miami Herald obituary described her as “ever an optimist, even when the culture of Miami Beach wasn’t always the most welcoming of environments.” The Bessie M. Galbut Daughters of Israel Mikvah Center in Miami Beach, a ritual bath for Orthodox Jews, is named after her.
Russell Galbut, a graduate of the University of Miami School of Law, has since established a name for himself, especially in the hospitality business. With partners and through the firm he co-founded, Crescent Heights, he developed The Alexander, The Casablanca, and luxury condo complex The Decoplage in Miami Beach.
Gale South Beach opened 11 years ago, and was the brand’s first hotel in South Florida.
Challenges for South Florida hotels
The debut of the Gale Miami Hotel & Residences comes as South Florida’s hotel industry has softened, especially compared to the euphoric days of the pandemic when many sought a sort of refuge in a region that mostly stayed open during COVID. Global competition also has increased. The relatively small number of new properties opened so far this year is in part a result of higher interest rates and stricter lending standards, which have made finishing construction more costly.
The Moxy Wynwood starts taking reservations June 23. Amrit Ocean Resort in Riviera Beach in Palm Beach County opened on May 15 although at least one main restaurant and the wellness center will not be fully ready until “later this summer,” said spokeswoman Stephanie Giner. Both the Moxy Wynwood and Amrit, along with Gale Miami, are behind schedule.
Tru by Hilton Miramar was planning to open in March but now says it will only take reservations beginning Aug. 26 At least another five are scheduled to open before year’s end, including citizenM in South Beach and Thompson South Beach.
Reservations and rates at the Gale Hotel in Miami
▪ For those interested in checking out the Gale in the first few months, the hotel says it will offer a 25% discount.
▪ Standard room rates start at $299 per night for a studio without the discount. If you book online, it asks you to use the promotional code GRANDPRO to get the discount.
▪ Reservations can be made on the hotel website or on hotel listing websites like Expedia or Booking.
