A developer wants to scale down its planned Goulds Village Center project to 300 units.
Lockhart Management Group, which primarily has built self-storage facilities across Florida, plans the market-rate complex with a pair of five-story buildings on a 3.7-acre site between U.S. 1 and the South Dade Busway, and between Southwest 216th and 220th streets in the Goulds neighborhood of unincorporated Miami-Dade County, according to an application filed late last month.
Last year, Lockhart Management, led by James Lockhart, scored administrative site plan approval from Miami-Dade for two five-story buildings with a total of 342 apartments on levels two through four, retail and 240 parking spaces on the buildings’ first levels, and amenities on the fifth floors.
The recent tweaks are for 388 parking spaces on the first two levels, 300 apartments on levels three through five, and retail still on the first level, the application shows. The amenities will be on the ground level between the two buildings.
Designed by GHA, Goulds Village Center will consist of studios, studios with a den, one-bedroom units, one-bedrooms with a den and two-bedrooms, the filing shows.
Lockhart Management, through an affiliate, bought the two vacant properties in 2022 for $4 million, according to records.
The firm’s website lists self-storage facilities as its completed projects, though Lockhart seems to be getting in on multifamily development. In Clermont, a suburb in Florida’s Lake County, Lockhart is developing a two-story townhouse complex with 112 rental units, according to its website.
Construction of Goulds Village Center is expected to start this year, Lockhart’s website says.
The site is in the Goulds Community Urban Center District, an area within Goulds where denser development with mid-rise buildings is allowed. Most of south Miami-Dade, including Goulds, has for years been largely home to single-family homes, apartment buildings and shopping plazas.
County commissioners approved such community urban center districts decades ago for several south Miami-Dade neighborhoods, including Naranja, Perrine, Princeton and Leisure City. The Goulds urban center district master plan was approved in 2003.
It wasn’t until South Florida’s recent market boom that developers seized on the community center district designations in south Miami-Dade, with proposals for bigger projects. This has led to more mid-rise buildings in the area.
More recently, many developers are opting for multifamily projects using the Live Local Act, which allows them to supersize projects as long as they designate at least 40 percent of units for renters earning no more than 120 percent of the area median income. Under the state law, approved in 2023 and tweaked in the two subsequent years, towers can reach up to the maximum height allowed within a mile of a development site.
Also in Goulds, RCC Developers proposed a 25-story, 300-unit tower under Live Local on the northeast corner of Southwest 214th Street and U.S. 1/South Dixie Highway. RCC ties to Martin Racca, president of Argentine firm RCC Emprendimientos, and Pablo Buttice, of Grupo Zero International Realty and GZI Realty. Buttice’s father is the late soccer star Carlos “Batman” Buttice.
Developers Mariano Karner and Esteban Koffsmon, through their K2 Capital Group, want to build an eight-story building with 206 apartments at 21220 and 21350 Southwest 115th Road and 21143 and 21281 Southwest 117th Avenue in Goulds.
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