Dec. 26, 2002 - Ah, Washington Avenue, the heart of South Beach's clubland, one of the last vestiges of SoBe's edgier past. Near 15th Street, the sexy and the seedy converge. Behold crobar nightclub, Grooveman Music, the Madonna strip club and -- a Courtyard by Marriott? 

Four blocks down, cast your gaze toward Level nightclub, the 1950s-era 11th Street Diner and, across the street, a delightful cluster of small Art Deco hotels that house -- a Best Western? 

Welcome to South Beach's future or, at the least, its present. 

Long the domain of one-of-a-kind boutique inns, South Beach is increasingly becoming home to hotels that have more in common with the world's Willy Lomans than its J.Los. 

The trend confirms what SoBe insiders have long known -- the secret is out. Middle America's in the house. 

"It's reflective of what's happening overall in South Beach," said Carmel Ophir, who runs Back Door Bamby, crobar's hip Monday night dance party. "Look at the demographics coming into Miami. How many Gaps do we have? Or Banana Republics? Whether it's TGI Friday's or Wet Willie's in the old Cafe des Arts building, it's not the hip fashionistas anymore or the cutting edge of anything." 

Brand-name hotels are no strangers to South Beach. Marriott runs a higher-priced oceanfront hotel at Second Street, and a Holiday Inn sits on Collins Avenue near 22nd Street. An 800-room Loews opened in 1998, the 422-room Royal Crowne Plaza in 2002, and a 375-room Ritz-Carlton is due in the coming year. 

But lately, the brands have begun to infiltrate the tiny historic boutiques. 

The 91-room Victor on Ocean Drive, under restoration, will be run by Hyatt. Best Western occupies the Kenmore, the Bel Aire, the Davis and the Taft, 135 rooms in all. The Courtyard by Marriott fills the shell of the Eastview, a formerly rundown 86-apartment building. 

Its opening, coupled with the Best Western, marks the first time that mass-appeal hotels laid stakes through what essentially is South Beach's heart. 

"It seems right in step with where South Beach has been headed for quite some time," noted Andrew Yeomanson, aka DJ Le Spam, a longtime fixture on the Miami scene. "Gradually, locally owned operations have been replaced by big-name corporate businesses. For me, Starbucks was the death knell, and that was three years back." One man's devolution, however, is another's evolution. 

For years, South Beach was one of the few resort regions in the country where hotels could be built without a name brand. But the developers who brought middlebrow digs to Miami Beach said today's hotel world leaves them little choice. The beach is saturated with boutique hotels, they say, that are overpriced and difficult to fill. Foreigners recognize and patronize brand names just as readily as Americans do McDonald's. And having a brand name helped them get financing to open and restore the hotels. 

"In today's hotel business, you have to be associated with a strong reservation system and connected with travel agents and tour operators worldwide," said Sharone Tzalik, who made the four boutique hotels along Washington Avenue into the Best Western. "We wanted to be associated with a brand that can reach out to the masses." While some SoBe purists may turn up their noses, the historic preservationists, perhaps the purest purists of all, cheered the additions, especially the Courtyard, which handily cleaned up what was once considered South Beach's most derelict commercial block. 

"It's certainly not bleeding the Beach of its character," said Randall Robinson, a planner with the Miami Beach Community Development Corp. "South Beach historically is a very democratic place. Only in the 1990s did this whole notion of it being exclusive develop. It's OK to have normal middle-class people around, because it was a normal middle-class kind of place from the beginning." 

Apart from new signs, the Best Western and Courtyard blend almost seamlessly into their Deco environs. Circumscribed by the edicts of the Historic Preservation Broad, they restored their respective buildings, polished or replaced old terrazzo floors and reversed years of slipshod repairs. 

Richard and Bobby Finvarb, the father-and-son team that developed the Courtyard by Marriott, took pains to infuse their hotel with Deco feel, installing fiberoptic lighting that shifts colors like a rainbow mood ring, aqua-tinted tiling, skylights and an infinity-edge rooftop pool that serves up arresting vistas of South Beach. 

"We pushed the envelope with Marriott, using happy colors, yellows and blues," said Bobby Finvarb, 34. "No one wants to walk into a hotel in South Beach and feel like they're in Boise." Still, places like Boise are becoming the hotel's biggest visitor sources. No superfabulous set this, the Courtyard brings in families from the Midwest and business people drawn to its two-block walk to the Miami Beach Convention Center. Barely open three months, the hotel has already beaten its projections. 

Of course, the Gatsby set still has its pick of playpens. There's always the Delano, the Shore Club and the Tides, glam-ridden, high-pressure haunts that fetch up to $2,000 per room. 

But for the rest of the world, for the khaki-and-belt set, for folks who don't want to or can't pay more than $140 a night, there's the Best Western or Courtyard, with their Minute Maid juice dispensers for the breakfast buffet and standard-issue coffeemakers in every room. 

"You don't see a bunch of musclebound guys and waifs walking around. You see normal people," Bobby Finvarb said. "You're getting South Beach without the snobbiness." 

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