New buyers are closing on multimillion-dollar condos inside the seven-story Vita at Grove Isle, but a group of Coconut Grove residents and civic organizations is still fighting in court to prove the building should never have been permitted.

A hearing on the City of Miami's motion to dismiss the lawsuit is set for Thursday, Oct. 15, in Miami-Dade Circuit Court. A trial originally scheduled for December 2025 has been pushed to January 2027.

The 65-unit waterfront tower, developed by Ugo Colombo's CMC Group on the gated, 20-acre private island in North Coconut Grove, completed construction in December 2025. As of early July, the building had recorded nearly $400 million in closings in fewer than 60 days, including multiple penthouse sales above $15 million and $20 million, the New York Post reported. Units still on the market range from about $5.8 million to more than $21 million.

Vita is the first new construction on Grove Isle since three 18-story condo towers rose in the late 1970s.

The lawsuit

The plaintiffs, Protect Grove Isle, the Tigertail Association, Kenneth Eblen and the Coconut Grove Civic Association, argue in an amended complaint filed in April 2026 that the city violated its own code by issuing permits without first requiring the land to be formally platted, or subdivided. They point to Section 55-10 of the city code, which prohibits building permits on land for which a required plat has not been recorded in county records.

The lawsuit asks the court to void the permits.

"If they get away with this here, you're going to see all these condos taking any land they have extra, selling it to third parties and letting them build these weird structures without getting platting," attorney David Winker, who represents the plaintiffs, told the Coconut Grove Spotlight.

The city counters in court filings that previous court decisions and agreements involving the Grove Isle Condominium Association already resolved the issues, and that the plaintiffs lack standing.

Winker said the earlier cases did not address the specific platting question at the heart of the current suit, and that the completion of Vita does not change the underlying legal questions.

A decade of dispute

The fight traces back to 2013, when an investment group led by developer Eduardo Avila purchased Grove Isle's former hotel and club for $24 million. The property later sold to CMC Group, which took over the project in 2021.

In January 2019, the City Attorney's Office concluded that the land division on the island "does not meet an exception to platting" under city code and briefly froze permits island-wide. Weeks later, after an attorney for the Grove Isle Condominium Association threatened a potential claim exceeding $500 million, the city retracted its recommendation and allowed permits to resume, according to city memorandums reviewed by the Coconut Grove Spotlight.

About a year after that reversal, the condo association settled with the developer, allowing construction to proceed. Under the deal, the developer agreed to cover a portion of infrastructure costs while residents would no longer pay mandatory membership dues for new club facilities.

What residents see

Elizabeth Tamayo, who bought her eighth-floor apartment in Tower Three in 2007 for its sweeping Biscayne Bay views, now looks out at Vita's glass facade instead of open water.

"Every time I see the [new] building, I miss the beautiful sea I would see before," Tamayo told the Spotlight.

Opponents also allege the tower breaches a 1977 covenant that capped residential units on the island at 575; Vita pushes the total to 589, according to the New York Post.

The Oct. 15 hearing will determine whether the case survives the city's dismissal bid. If it does, trial is set for January 2027.