By Jeff Ostrowski August 21, 2026 1:45 pm
reprintsWith a population of less than 6,000, little Bay Harbor Islands, Fla., is often overlooked – but not by Regency Development Group.
Since 2020, the developer has been building residential projects in the coastal community near Surfside, Indian Creek and Bal Harbour.
Regency has four active projects on the island, including the 33-unit La Maré Regency, the nine-unit La Maré Signature and the 20-unit Bay Harbor Villas. Commercial Observer recently caught up with Michael Troyanovsky, managing partner and vice president of the family company, to discuss the submarket’s success.
The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Commercial Observer: Why Bay Harbor Islands? What caught your interest about that submarket?
Michael Troyanovsky: A really valid question, because there were other hot spot areas that a lot of people were gravitating to when we first started buying Bay Harbor.
We came to the area, and we really felt like it had the most potential. It was always overlooked. It’s honestly the most amazing hidden gem. It’s surrounded by the most beautiful waters, a little nook in the center of Miami. It’s getting more and more discovered.
Since then, we really integrated into the island, and we really got to know the local community, the local governments, because we have to work very closely with them on getting all the projects approved and making sure that it fits the neighborhood and demographic. We opened up a big sales office here, and we plan to stay here for the future.
Who are you finding is the target demographic for your units?
It’s a little bit of a mix demographic-wise, but I would say a lot of people who, whether it’s local or international, really want boutique building living.
I’ve had the pleasure of meeting with all the people who purchased in the building and so many customers over the last few years, and all of them have said pretty much the same thing. Everyone wants privacy, and they want boutique living.
So some of our clients are people who always lived in single-family homes, whose kids have grown up, and they’ve become empty nesters, but they don’t want to give up the privacy of a single-family home. So they buy into a boutique building. One of our buildings is nine units, one of our buildings is 33 units, so they’re really boutique living.
Alternatively, there are people who live in the big condo buildings. We’ve had a few people from 150- to 200-unit condo buildings who really don’t want to do that anymore. They really want their privacy back, and they really want to live in a smaller community.
What’s the typical unit selling for in your developments?
We’re ranging around $2 to $10 million, I would say that’s the sweet spot. Around 1,800 to 2,000 square feet.
Any changes that you’ve made, or any adjustments in response to the market as you’ve been selling these projects?
When we started the project, our units were quite large, and we originally anticipated there being anywhere between 1,500 square feet for two-bedrooms to 4,500 square feet for four-bedrooms. We didn’t anticipate that more people would be coming in and combining units, making them even larger. So for future projects, I would be taking that into consideration and adding the ability to do some kind of customization and combine units. That was a big learning curve for us, that people are moving to Bay Harbor with larger families.
What’s been your biggest challenge in Bay Harbor Islands?
I would say that it is a quieter neighborhood, so by coming in, we create a lot of noise and a lot of daily disruption. So, I would say, integrating into the community and really working with them, working with the city to find the best way to not disrupt everyone in their daily lives while we develop these projects.
When you’re developing somewhere like Brickell, you don’t have that problem, necessarily. But in Bay Harbor, since it is such a family community, you have to really be patient as you’re developing.
We really operate between the hours of 9:30 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. Other places in Florida allow you to work on the weekends. We only do Monday through Friday. We really want to minimize the hours of operation.
And we really work closely with the city in terms of finding the best way to work with that, to make sure that they’re happy, we’re progressing with our project, and then, obviously, their goal is similar to our goals. We want to be part of this community, and it’s in our interest to make sure that everyone is happy with the stuff that we’re doing here.
Jeff Ostrowski can be reached at jostrowski@commercialobserver.com.