The future Gansevoort South Beach and Residences.

A sign that Miami Beach is still the place to be: The super-trendy Gansevoort Hotel in Manhattan’s über-hip Meatpacking District is opening a southern outpost, Gansevoort South Hotel and Residences, on Collins Avenue between 23rd and 24th Streets.

Michael Achenbaum, head of the Gansevoort Hotel Group in New York, hopes to draw to his South Beach venture throngs of high-class visitors from around the world willing to drop big bucks for a top-dollar experience. During the summer off-season, the smallest of the 334 hotel rooms will start at $425 a night. The price will increase to $625 per night in the busier winter months. The development will include 259 condominiums; a rooftop deck with a 110-foot swimming pool; two restaurants, one by New York Chef Philippe Chow; a ground-level VIP lounge and more.

But with a successful operation of this magnitude comes the challenge of being a good neighbor. Creating a dialogue of understanding between the management of the Gansevoort and nearby neighbors has been a focus of the city of Miami Beach Planning Board in recent meetings.

The Gansevoort South is not a new construction project; rather, it’s a major renovation of the Roney Hotel that was built in 1968 and closed its doors in August 2004. The first eight floors of the north tower will be hotel rooms, and floors nine through 17 will be condominiums. The 569-unit Roney Palace Condominium, in the south tower of the complex, was given a facelift by the Gansevoort developers to make it look fresh and new like the north tower, but will not change its name.

The Gansevoort South is one more in a series of luxury condo hotels that are transforming the upper-teens and low-twenties blocks of Collins Avenue into South Beach’s next hot neighborhood. Others are the 40-story Setai that opened a couple of years ago at 20th Street and the 20-story W South Beach Hotel and Residences, which is scheduled to open in 2009 on the site of the former Holiday Inn one block north.

No one attending last week’s Miami Beach Planning Board meeting doubted that the Gansevoort South will be first class, but they did question the extent to which an operation of its size will affect the neighbors’ quality of life. It is one more example of the complex balancing act between Beach businesses’ rights to prosper and residents’ rights to live in peace.

The planning board approved the Gansevoort South’s two restaurants, ballroom, VIP lounge, gym and spa on Aug. 28. But to alleviate neighbors’ concerns that noise and traffic from the property’s rooftop pool and valet stands would make their lives miserable, the board directed the developer to meet with residents of the Riviera condominium across 24th Street, create a line of communication and solve foreseeable problems. The results of their talks were aired at the Sept. 25 planning board meeting.

“We have agreed that the senior hotel manager will meet with the board of the neighbors to the north on a monthly basis to ensure dialogue so that we can proactively address any concerns that arise,” said Carter McDowell, an attorney representing the project.

He said the developer conducted a test to measure how sound travels from the Gansevoort South’s rooftop pool deck to the Riviera condominium.

“Standing outside of the building on the balcony on the 18th floor, they were unable to hear music played on our rooftop at a level of 82 decibels, not the 75 decibels that we have limited ourselves to,” McDowell said.

The sound test was taken from the balcony of Moises Order’s residence at the Riviera. Order is the board president of the Riviera Condominium Association.

“At 75 [decibels] I did hear the music; it wasn’t too loud, but I did hear the music,” Order said. He added that the test was taken with heavy traffic on Collins Avenue and a noisy construction elevator operating. The test was conducted without the sound-buffering wall that the developer plans to build.

The board also discussed plans to minimize traffic and noise from three valet parking stands and a loading dock, and address sanitation issues that include garbage pickup and keeping the streets and gutters clean around the complex.

Gerald K. Schwartz, an attorney representing the Riviera, said his clients were satisfied that the developer was doing what it could to mitigate the impact on the neighbors, but they were still concerned.

“We would like the right to come back before this board and express our concerns and let this board hear the problems and make some decisions,” Schwartz said.

If the developer doesn’t live up to the conditions of approval, it will be dealt with by either code compliance or a trip back before the board, testified Jorge Gomez, director of the Miami Beach Planning Department.

Before the planning board voted unanimously in favor of the project, board Chairman Marlo Courtney said the communication between the developer and the residents at the Riviera “speaks volumes to what this operation is going to be.”

He pointed to Jeffrey Chodorow — the restaurateur behind such high-end restaurants as Blue Door, China Grill, Social Miami and Tuscan Steak, and others around the world — who was sitting in the audience.

“You have one of the greatest restaurant operators in the world who is part of this, a great hotelier,” Courtney said. “I’m recognizing you, Jeffrey.”

The ironic part of Courtney’s statement is that Chodorow’s role in the project is not yet confirmed.

“He’s still in negotiations for one of the restaurants at the Gansevoort South,” Terry Zarikian, director of product development for Chodorow’s China Grill Management, said in a telephone interview Monday morning.

Whether or not Chodorow officially comes onboard is just one of the unknowns. The other is whether the planning board’s conditions will work, which brings to mind the broader issue of how much power any city board has to regulate relations between businesses and residents.

The Zoning Board of Adjustment, for example, could not help neighbors of the Table 8 restaurant inside the Vincci South Beach (formerly the Regent South Beach) hotel at 1458 Ocean Drive. Though Table 8 is of a much smaller scale than the Gansevoort South, the board of adjustment has found itself in the middle of a battle between the management and upset neighbors.

Neighbors to the north continually complain that music from an outdoor bar at Table 8 disrupts their serenity and keeps them awake at night. The owner of Table 8 spent tens of thousands of dollars on sound panels and other remedies that have helped, but not eliminated, the problem. The board of adjustment ruled Sept. 7 that it is powerless to do anything more than it already has unless the restaurant receives a written noise violation.

The Gansevoort South Hotel and Residences is scheduled to open in early 2008, but has already been pushed back more than once.

 “We’re walking into unknown territory because this hotel building hasn’t really operated for several years,” said Schwartz, Riviera’s attorney. “We’re really not sure what’s going to be the outcome.”