It could almost be called a contrarian venture. Aqua, the 8.5-acre, $150 million project now under development by Craig Robins' Dacra Development in the South Beach section of Miami Beach promises to be something different when it is completed two years from now.

The 166-unit residential complex's fresh mix of modernist mid-rise and town-house dwellings sets it apart from the high-rise apartment towers that line the Atlantic Ocean. Rather than lovingly preserving or restoring an Art Deco or Modern relic, this undertaking involves the demolition of a 1920s hospital. And the site has a zoning allowance much more generous than what Robins is building. Nor is the new project beachfront; it is located on Allison Island, two blocks from the ocean in the middle of Indian Creek.

Robins - who for a decade has been a force in the reinvigoration of South Beach and of Miami's Design District - will preserve one structure on the site: a 400,000-square-foot office tower and parking garage. But St. Francis Hospital, where Robins was born, is already history.

The hospital had been through numerous owners by the time Dacra acquired it from Columbia HCA two years ago for some $10 million. Other developers had been put off by the threat of community opposition to high-rise development. "The community didn't want the existing hospital, it didn't want high-rise and it didn't want assisted living," explains Robins. To make matters more complicated, Columbia wouldn't let a sale be contingent on rezoning approval for the property from health care to residential.

Where others saw headaches, Robins saw opportunity. "Our idea was a solution no one had considered, but that was pretty much ideal to the community," says Robins. "It has a lot less density than traditional Miami Beach developments, and we were willing to take a chance on zoning. I knew I had to be granted a use for the existing structure, we were able to work with the community and reach a compromise."

Rather than going for height and bulk, Robins opted for breadth and depth - and community-friendly design. He tapped New Urbanist pioneers Duany Plater-Zyberk (DPZ) of Miami, which had previously worked for Dacra on guidelines for the Design District. DPZ held a design charrette with the community to come up with design and planning guidelines for the development, which will feature 46 town houses along with 120 condominium units in three mid-rise buildings, none higher than 11 stories.

Ludwig Fontalvo-Abello, the DPZ project manager for Aqua, notes that there is a critical difference between this plan and others the firm has created: its relatively small size. Most DPZ projects sit on at least 100 acres. "This is the first project where DPZ hasn't been asked to build a traditional neighborhood development," says Fontalvo-Abello. "We don't have the mix of uses vital to a TND. However, it is one in the way its components work - streets, blocks, alleys, a mix of buildings and a small retail component."

It also gives DPZ the chance to bring New Urbanism to an urban setting. "This is New Urbanism brought to the city instead of the suburbs," explains Miami Beach Mayor Neisen Kasdin. "It's a significant step in the New Urbanist movement." For the South Beach area, Kasdin declares, Aqua "will shift the paradigm of what is high-end residential development."

The design for Aqua will be much more modern than for most DPZ-planned neighborhoods, which typically feature homes in traditional and vernacular styles. Aqua's buildings have been designed by an A-list of New York and Miami modernist architects, including Alison Spear, Alexander Gorlin, Manuela Frattini Magnusson, Brown and Demandt, Hariri and Hariri, Suzanne Martinson and Wolfberg Alvarez.

Although Robins is happy to tout the amenities the complex will offer - two pools, a spa, an office center, event facilities, 1,000 or so square feet of retail and selections from his personal art collection - he considers them secondary to the design itself. "The most important, main amenity is that it's a neighborhood instead of a development," says Robins. "Urban design is the main amenity. Everything else is secondary."