GTA 6 sleuths find Jason and Lucia's real-life apartment — it was demolished years ago
A GTA 6 fan has tracked down the real Miami building Rockstar used as the reference for Jason and Lucia's apartment in the Extended Look: the Belmar Condominium in Edgewater, demolished in 2022 while the game was still in development. The empty lot is a striking reminder of how long GTA 6 has been in the making.
A detective story built from a window
Ever since "An Extended Look" aired on August 27, fans have been dissecting the 26-minute gameplay deep dive frame by frame. One of the most intriguing finds so far is not hidden in Vice City — it is in Miami, and it no longer exists. A GTA 6 sleuth claims to have identified the real-life building Rockstar used as the reference for Jason and Lucia's apartment, and the twist is that it was torn down years before the game's release (Dexerto).
The investigation started with the skyline visible through the couple's window. Matching it to modern Miami led to a dead end: on current maps, the lot where the building should have been is completely empty. Using Google Maps' historical imagery feature, the fan rolled the timeline back to the era when Rockstar would have been scouting locations — and the missing building reappeared in the exact position and orientation shown in the trailer. Archived Zillow listings then confirmed that Rockstar had reproduced not just the exterior, but the actual interior layout of the property.
The Belmar Condominium, a 1970s building that lives on in a video game
According to the fan's findings, reported by Dexerto and GameRant, the building is the Belmar Condominium, located in Miami's Edgewater neighborhood. Built in 1973, it was a small 13-unit condominium sitting on a compact triangular lot directly across from Margaret Pace Park, with sweeping views of Biscayne Bay that match the balcony shots seen in the footage.
The twist is the timeline. Per The Real Deal, developers bought the entire building for $12 million in 2022, with plans to replace it with a $300 million, 55-story tower called Vela. The building was demolished while GTA 6 was still in development. The tower project then stalled after zoning pushback, and the developers withdrew their application in 2023. As of 2026, the site remains an empty lot, listed as "on hold" — while the original 1970s building lives on, digitally, inside GTA 6.
What it says about GTA 6's development
The discovery is a striking illustration of how long GTA 6 has been in the making. Rockstar began working on the game in earnest years ago, and the real-world reference for a scene in the Extended Look has already been demolished and replaced by an empty plot. It also says a lot about the studio's approach: rather than inventing a generic apartment, Rockstar recreated a real Miami building in such detail that its interior layout can be matched to archived real-estate listings.
It is not the first time fans have traced Vice City back to its real-world inspiration — players recently spotted what looks like Dexter Morgan's Miami apartment complex hidden in the game, fueling hopes of a deeper reference to the show (Dexerto). As with any fan identification, nothing here is officially confirmed by Rockstar: the match is based on visual and archival evidence, not on a studio statement. Still, the detail is a perfect example of the "detail maniac" reputation the studio earned with these 26 minutes — even when the real building is gone, its digital twin survives in Leonida. GTA 6 launches on November 19, 2026 on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.
Update — 2026-08-31
Kotaku has since put a name to the detective work. In a report published August 31, the outlet identifies the sleuth as prettyboycuh, an Instagram user who posted his research video on August 28 — roughly 24 hours after the Extended Look aired. The video lines up the apartment seen at the 6:20 mark of the reveal with a now-vanished Miami building: same off-pink facade, similar parking lot and, across the road, a near-identical copy of the light-blue Quantum on the Bay Condominium on Bayshore Drive (Kotaku).
The fan says he dug through Google Maps' historical imagery all the way back to 2013 — because that is when Rockstar started developing the game, he argues. Kotaku dates the demolition of the building to 2023, while earlier reports (The Real Deal) placed it in 2022; the outlet does not address the discrepancy. It also concedes the match is not perfect: following the route Jason drives from the apartment quickly shows Rockstar took creative liberties with Miami's road layout, as expected from a compressed game map. Kotaku's verdict: the fan is "on the money." As always with such identifications, Rockstar has not officially confirmed the connection.
