Blue Condominium · #2004

Blue Condominium is a 35-story bayfront condominium at 601 NE 36th Street in Edgewater, completed in 2005 with architecture by Arquitectonica. The tower delivered approximately 330 residences across one- and two-bedroom floor plans, with floor-to-ceiling glass, open kitchens, and private balconies on every unit. The defining gesture is the cobalt-blue glass curtain wall, which gives the building its name and makes it one of the most visible bay-facing towers along the lower Edgewater stretch of Biscayne Bay. Arquitectonica's facade treatment at Blue Condominium predates the firm's later Edgewater work at Paramount Bay and Aria Reserve, and the saturated blue glazing remains one of the most architecturally distinctive curtain walls north of the MacArthur Causeway. The 601 NE 36th Street site sits on the bay edge in middle Edgewater, between Margaret Pace Park to the south and Morningside to the north. The Design District's flagship retail stretch is roughly half a mile west, with the Hermes, Dior, Louis Vuitton, and Christian Louboutin storefronts and the Institute of Contemporary Art Miami clustered along NE 39th and 40th Streets. Wynwood's gallery and food-hall row is a short ride south along NE 2nd Avenue, and Midtown Miami's big-box retail and restaurant row is between the two. I-195 and the Julia Tuttle Causeway sit just north of the building, giving owners a quick crossing to South Beach, and the SoMi Edgewater stretch around the building has filled in with bayfront towers including Paramount Bay, Biscayne Beach, and Aria on the Bay over the years following Blue's delivery. The Blue Condominium amenity program is built around the bayfront site: a heated waterfront pool deck with cabanas, a separate spa pool, a fitness center, a sauna and steam room, a business center, a residents' lounge, a 24-hour attended lobby, and valet at the porte cochere. The ground floor carries a small reception and lounge area along with a bayside deck that extends to the seawall. Blue Condominium tends to draw a mix of full-time owners, second-home buyers, and longer-term renters given its unit-size range, bay frontage, and walkability to the Design District and Wynwood, and the building's mid-2000s delivery means owners benefit from the area's significant gentrification over the past two decades.