Playboy under contract to buy Freehand Miami hotel for $12.5 million, Business Journal reports

Update (Nov. 9, 9:23 p.m.): Public records help explain the address confusion. City historic preservation filings describe the hotel property as 2701 and 2727 Indian Creek Drive, 233 27th St. and 230 28th St. The Historic Preservation Board approved a certificate of appropriateness in 2022 for partial demolition and renovation there, and a separate 2022 request for a variance to reduce minimum hotel room sizes is still listed as under review. The Miami-Dade Property Appraiser files the main hotel parcel on that block under 2731 Indian Creek Drive: an 86-unit hotel built in 1936, owned by Sydell Indian Creek LLC, which bought it in January 2012 for $12 million. Its 2027 assessed value is $11.2 million. The appraiser lists no sale since then.

Update (Nov. 9, 5:48 p.m.): World Red Eye reported Monday evening that the buyer under contract is a Playboy affiliate, Playboy MB JV LLC, and that Playboy may bring in outside investors to buy, develop and run the property. It said the Freehand has 89 rooms in several buildings dating from 1922 to 1936. The Real Deal also reported the deal. World Red Eye gave the address as 2701 Indian Creek Drive; other listings use 2727. It said the club concept, membership prices and opening date have not been announced, and that closing is still expected by Dec. 15.

Playboy is under contract to buy the Freehand Miami hotel in Miami Beach for $12.5 million and plans to turn it into a members-only club, the South Florida Business Journal reported Monday. The deal is expected to close by Dec. 15, according to the Business Journal’s post on X. The report has not been independently confirmed: the full article is behind a paywall, and Red Sidewalks could not find a deed, filing or company announcement.

The Freehand sits at 2727 Indian Creek Drive in Mid-Beach. The report did not say what would happen to the hotel’s rooms, its bars or its restaurant.

Playboy announced in August 2025 that it was moving its global headquarters from Los Angeles to Miami Beach, into developer Robert Rivani’s office building, and said it planned a members-only club with a restaurant there, NBC 6 reported at the time.

No item for 2727 Indian Creek Drive appears on the city’s commission, committee or land-use board agendas posted for the next 45 days.