The Monte-Carlo Bay Goes Up: Three New Storeys of Private Residences Above the Lagoon

For two decades, the Monte-Carlo Bay Hotel & Resort has been the low, sunlit counterpoint to Monaco’s towers. It is a resort arranged around a lagoon, at the eastern end of the Larvotto. That silhouette is about to change. The Monte-Carlo Bay extension, confirmed by Monte-Carlo Société des Bains de Mer, adds three storeys to the hotel. Not one of them will hold a guest room.

Instead, SBM will build very large residences with private pools and rooftop gardens, reserved exclusively for year-round luxury leases. Works are scheduled to start in autumn 2027, with completion targeted for around 2030. For anyone who owns, rents or is considering a purchase in the Larvotto, the details deserve close attention.

What SBM Has Confirmed

Stéphane Valeri, SBM’s President-Delegate, presented the plan at the annual general meeting, held in the Bay’s own America lounge. According to Monaco Hebdo, the renovation of the hotel’s 332 rooms will run until 2028 or 2029. The wider architectural project, including the new storeys, should then be complete around 2030.

The technical case is straightforward. In an earlier interview, Valeri explained that the eleven existing floors can carry three more without structural reinforcement. The Prince’s Government has agreed the project in principle, although the permits have yet to be issued. Within SBM, the group’s real estate development department is steering the file.

The scale has also been revised. When SBM first floated the idea, it spoke of four additional floors, as L’Observateur de Monaco noted at the time. The confirmed figure is now three.

Why Residences Rather Than Rooms

The reasoning is operational. At peak summer, the resort’s restaurants, lagoon and pool already run close to saturation, as Valeri told The Hospitality Tribune. More guest rooms would only stretch them further. Year-round tenants, by contrast, generate income that does not depend on the high season.

That income carries real weight inside the group. In the 2025/2026 financial year, SBM’s rental division produced €156.5 million of the group’s €861.6 million revenue. Its operating result rose to €118.2 million. Its residential, retail and office space is already fully let. As a result, organic growth depends largely on the indexation written into existing leases. Valeri puts it at around 3 percent. New square metres are therefore the only way to accelerate.

A Familiar Monaco Technique

Building upward on an existing structure, known locally as surélévation, is common practice in the Principality. SBM has used it before. The Aigue Marine building in Fontvieille, home to the group’s headquarters, gained three levels of offices. In the same district, the head office of the energy utility SMEG added four storeys and a roof terrace. On a territory of just over two square kilometres, height is often the last land reserve available.

Each project of this kind still passes through Monaco’s planning and building-control process. We examined it in our guide to how the Principality governs what it builds. For the Bay, the permis de construire will be the next visible milestone.

What the Monte-Carlo Bay Extension Means for the Larvotto Market

For the sales market, tenure is the decisive detail. The new residences are intended exclusively for leasing, so they will not be offered for sale. They follow SBM’s established model. The group’s residential portfolio already includes the Balmoral, the Villas du Sporting, One Monte-Carlo and the Sporting residences.

Two consequences follow. First, the extension adds supply at the very top of Monaco’s rental market. Yet not a single apartment joins the Larvotto’s sales inventory. Scarcity on the ownership side is therefore unchanged, a dynamic explored in our analysis of Monaco’s future inventory. Second, tenants seeking hotel-serviced space on the waterfront will gain a new option around 2030. That option will compete directly with privately owned apartments let on long leases. Landlords in the district should read our assessment of what performs in the Monaco rental market with that in mind.

Views are the remaining question. Three extra storeys will alter some sightlines in the surrounding blocks. Nobody can say which apartments are affected until SBM files its plans. Buyers eyeing a sea-view property near the Monte-Carlo Bay extension should factor its height into their due diligence. They should also review the approved massing as soon as it is available.

No Renderings Yet

SBM has not released architectural images of the Monte-Carlo Bay extension. Press visuals so far show the existing hotel, in one case with graphic arrows added, rather than a design proposal. The first reliable picture of the Bay’s new silhouette will come with the planning file.