In the game
Bayside is one of the three Vice City districts Rockstar has named in official material, alongside Ocean Beach and Stockyard. The name came out with the Extended Look, which moves through a waterfront of marinas, palms and mid-rise blocks with the tall glass towers of downtown right behind. Because Rockstar named it, this page carries our highest confidence: the district exists and it is called Bayside.
What we cannot tell you is exactly where its edges are, or how much of it is modeled on any one real block. The real-world anchor is obvious, though. Miami’s downtown waterfront is called Bayfront, its best-known building is Bayside Marketplace, and the game’s name is a nod to both. The Extended Look’s marina scenes match the boat slips along the downtown seawall.
The real place
Bayside Marketplace opened in 1987, a pastel open-air mall on the water next to Bayfront Park. It was built as a festival marketplace in the style of Baltimore’s Harborplace, and it has stayed what it was: shops, bars, a Hard Rock Cafe with a giant guitar, live music in the courtyard, and a marina from which most sightseeing boats in Miami depart. The Skyviews observation wheel went up next to it in the early 2020s.
Stand on the seawall in the late afternoon and you have the whole set-up in one view: yachts in the slips, the Heat’s arena to the north, the port cranes across the channel, and the towers of Brickell curving away south. A GTA fan will recognize it as the kind of place a game drops you at the start, everything visible from one point.
Go there
Take the Metromover; College/Bayside station is a two-minute walk from the marina and the ride is free. If you drive, the marketplace garage charges $10-25 depending on the day.
Do the boat. Ninety-minute bay cruises leave from the Bayside docks every hour or so through the day, usually $30-45 per person, and they run out past the port, along the mansion islands and back beneath the causeways. It is the fastest way to see how Vice City’s geography is stitched together. Check the operator’s schedule and buy in advance on weekends.
Afterwards, walk the waterfront south through Bayfront Park, the city’s front lawn and the place where the New Year’s Eve orange drops. The Freedom Tower is across Biscayne Boulevard from the marketplace.
Eat at the marketplace if you want a view and do not mind chain prices ($20-40 a head), or walk five minutes into downtown for Cuban and Latin cafeterias at half that.
The honest warning: Bayside is a tourist mall, and it feels like one. Come for the water and the boats, not for the shopping. Watch your pockets in the courtyard crowds and skip the people selling bay-tour tickets on the pavement; buy from the booth.
Nearby
- The downtown skyline: the towers are the backdrop to everything here.
- The pale tower downtown: directly across the boulevard from the marketplace.
- The port cranes on the skyline: the cranes and cruise ships are across the channel from the marina.
- The waterfront mansion pool party: the Bayside boat tours are how you see the islands.
Updated September 12, 2026. Spotted an error? Tell us.