Read: 11-story mixed-use tower with 240 apartments approved in North Miami
By Erik Bojnansky – Reporter, South Florida Business Journal
Jul 12, 2024 – Updated Jul 15, 2024 12:11pm EDT
North Miami officials approved an 11-story mixed-use tower that may reserve most of its residential units for workforce housing.
At its July 9 meeting, city council members approved NOMI Holdings Group 2 LLC’s conditional use permit application to build a 103-foot tall tower with 90 one-bedroom apartments, 150 two-bedroom apartments, about 22,000 square feet of retail, 339 parking spaces, and about 11,000 square feet of green space.
The mixed-use project, called Urbania NoMi 6th Ave, will be built on a 2.74-acre site at 12830 NE Sixth Ave. and 575 N.E. 127th St. where a church, a private school, and a single-family home now stand.
NOMI Holdings Group 2 LLC, a partnership between Miami-based SP Developments and Medellin, Colombia-based Continua Developments, invested $6.92 million assembling the site in 2022.
NoMi 6th Ave. will cost $58.9 million to build and create 429 direct and 121 indirect jobs, according to consulting firm Miami Economic Associates.
The developers intend to reserve between 80% and 90% of NoMi 6th Ave’s units for moderate income housing, said Ethan Wasserman, a Greenberg Traurig attorney who represents the project’s developers.
The developers’ goal is to utilize the state’s Live Local Act tax benefit route, Wasserman said. Under the newly amended law, developers can obtain a 75% property tax abatement if at least 70 of a project’s apartments are reserved for households earning between 80% and 120% of the area median income (AMI). If more than 70 apartments are below 80% AMI, that project can obtain a 100% tax abatement.
Under current Housing and Urban Development Guidelines, the maximum a developer can charge someone who earns 80% AMI in Miami-Dade County is $1,703 a month for a one-bedroom and $2,042 for a two-bedroom. For someone who earns 120% AMI the maximum monthly rate is $2,554 for a one-bedroom and $3,063 for a two-bedroom.
Council members Scott Galvin and Mary Estimé-Irvin said they were worried that, if the permit was voted down, the developer could simply seek a permit administratively via the Live Local Act. Besides tax abatements, the state automatically grants maximum density rights for projects built on commercial zoned land that are 40% affordable or workforce housing. The state law also bans public hearings for qualified Live Local Act projects.
“I am happy that the applicant is coming to us to implement this versus them coming back and doing whatever they want to do,” said Estimé-Irvin, the city’s vice mayor.
“We can travel the Live Local Act route. We chose not to,” Wasserman said, adding that the developer may come back before North Miami’s Community Redevelopment Agency.
Should the developer opt to go through the Live Local Act, the law won’t apply to entire assemblage. About 17,175 square feet of the 107,429-square-foot site is zoned commercial.