MILA is a nine-residence boutique project at 1125 97th Street — near the northern end of Bay Harbor Island, close to the Bal Harbour boundary. The building shares its developer (Islands Development Group / Charleville construction) and design team (Kobi Karp, Exoticscape landscape) with ALMA, a sister project at 1160 101st Street. The two buildings are related but serve slightly different buyer configurations — MILA tops out at 4 bedrooms and 3,900 square feet, while ALMA reaches 5 bedrooms and 4,400 square feet.
Building Overview
Nine residences, each with a private elevator arrival — one of the defining features of a building at this scale. Residences run from 2 to 4 bedrooms, ranging from 2,100 to 3,900 square feet. Every unit has dual terraces designed to capture both sunrise exposure to the east and sunset exposure to the west. A rooftop retreat includes a pool, cabanas, and entertaining spaces with a summer kitchen — shared among nine owners, which is a fundamentally different use experience from a rooftop shared among 40 or 60.
Kobi Karp describes the architectural approach as "contemporary tropical" — a language that integrates lush landscaping with the building structure rather than treating greenery as decoration applied after the fact. Exoticscape handles the landscape architecture, which at a nine-unit building carries more visible weight per resident than at a larger project.
Architecture & Developer
Kobi Karp's involvement in MILA marks his fourth or fifth Bay Harbor Islands project — depending on how you count the La Mare two-building collection — which says something about both his firm's relationship with this micro-market and the confidence developers place in that track record here. The architecture for MILA leans into the building's small scale: the design does not attempt to be monumental, which is appropriate for a residential address at this size. The bespoke finish approach reflects a development philosophy closer to custom residential than condo development.
Islands Development Group, operating through Charleville for construction, is a BHI-focused developer. Their orientation toward the island rather than the broader Miami market produces projects with specific local knowledge — lot selection, context, what the buyer pool in this zip code actually responds to. That specificity is a reasonable proxy for confidence in the development judgment, though buyers should verify the completed track record before contract.
Buyer Profile
The nine-unit format with private elevator arrivals draws a specific buyer. This is not a building for someone who wants a full amenity stack and a large management infrastructure — it's for someone who wants the residential privacy of a house with the ownership simplicity of a condo. The profile tends toward buyers who have owned in larger buildings and found the shared elevator, the lobby encounters, the neighbor proximity to be the trade-off they most want to eliminate.
The 97th Street location — near the northern tip of the island, close to the Bal Harbour entry — is relevant for buyers who prioritize Bal Harbour Shops proximity. This is one of the closer BHI addresses to that destination. International buyers for whom Bay Harbor Islands represents a considered choice — rather than a fallback from Bal Harbour — and who want the smallest possible building footprint are a consistent profile at projects like MILA.
How It Fits the Market
MILA occupies the ultra-boutique tier of BHI new construction alongside La Mare Signature (also 9 units) and ALMA (also 9 units by the same developer). The difference between MILA and La Mare Signature is primarily position and design language: La Mare is bayfront with boat slips; MILA is a 97th Street address without waterfront but with the same private-floor-per-unit concept.
For buyers who are running a direct comparison between MILA and ALMA — the two sister projects from the same team — the practical distinction is unit size ceiling (3,900 SF vs 4,400 SF) and bedroom maximum (4 vs 5). The buildings are otherwise similar in character. Whether that difference matters depends on the buyer's actual space requirements rather than aspirational thinking. For the broader BHI context, see the Bay Harbor Islands real estate overview.