Integral Group plans 330 affordable and workforce housing units in two projects in Liberty City and Homestead.
In Liberty City, Atlanta-based Integral wants to develop the 170-unit Eviva Uptown Center, a Live Local Act project with a 10-story building on the northeast corner of Northwest 60th Street and Northwest Seventh Avenue in Miami, according to an application submitted to Miami-Dade County this month. The 1.2-acre site is at 6007, 6013 and 6015 Northwest Seventh Avenue, and 6056 Northwest Sixth Court.
Under the Live Local Act, 68 of the units must be for households earning no more than 120 percent of the area median income. The state law, approved in 2023 and tweaked in the subsequent two years, awards developers with property tax exemptions and allows them to build bigger projects as long as they designate at least 40 percent of their units at workforce or affordable rents.
Integral is asking Miami-Dade for a pre-application meeting, which developers generally request to gauge county staff members’ input before an official application is filed.
In Homestead, Integral scored approval to replace the West Homestead Gardens and Homestead Village public housing complexes, which have a total of 23 units, with a 160-unit residential complex with apartments and for-sale townhouses, according to Miami-Dade records. The development site consists of 21 lots between Southwest Fifth and Fourth streets, both east and west of Southwest Fourth Avenue. The county owns most of the lots, and the city of Homestead will convey some of the properties.
Last Wednesday, Miami-Dade commissioners voted to enter a lease and development agreement with Integral through the federal Rental Assistance Demonstration program. Integral’s rent payments to the county will total $36.5 million, including 20 percent from the completed project’s cash flow, over the 99-year lease term, county records show.
The Rental Assistance Demonstration program allows counties to redevelop or modernize their aging, cash-strapped public housing complexes by partnering with private development firms that build new Section 8 housing.
Integral’s preliminary renderings show four four-story apartment buildings and 13 for-sale townhomes on the Homestead properties. The rentals and townhomes will be reserved for households earning no more than 80 percent of the area median income.
Miami-Dade is redeveloping and modernizing about 7,700 public housing units through the Rental Assistance Demonstration program. The new projects include Section 8 units reserved for residents at the existing public housing complexes.
Also last Wednesday, Miami-Dade commissioners approved leasing a portion of the Annie Coleman 14 public housing complex to Miami Beach-based Redwood Dev Co, which will redevelop it with 287 affordable units in three eight-story buildings, 36 townhouses and 4,800 square feet of retail, according to county records. The site is at 2415-2479 and 2494 Northwest 50th Street and 2600 Northwest 48th Street in unincorporated Miami-Dade.
The commission’s vote also allows for Redwood to redevelop the Gwen Cherry 07 public housing site with a 150-unit affordable housing building reserved for renters 62 and older, and the Lemon City public housing complex with a 260-unit affordable apartment building. The properties are at 170 Northeast 67th Street, 6850 and 6860 Northeast Second Avenue, and 185, 147 and 137 Northeast 68th Terrace in Miami.
Redwood is co-developing the projects with Coconut Grove-based Magasi Management.
Integral also will redevelop a public housing complex in Miami’s Coconut Grove under the Rental Assistance Demonstration program. Last month, county commissioners approved a lease and development agreement for a new 450-unit mixed-income project on the site of a 24-unit Section 8 housing complex at 3666 Day Avenue in Miami.
Led by Egbert L.J. Perry and Vicki Lundy Wilbon, Integral is a real estate development, investment and management firm founded in 1993, according to its website. It also has property, construction and asset management arms.
South Florida has long struggled with a lack of affordable housing, exacerbated by the influx of out-of-staters during the pandemic, which created unprecedented apartment demand and record rent growth.
Developers have seized on the need for below-market rate housing with plans for new projects.
In Liberty City, Miami-based Atlantic Pacific Companies plans to redevelop the long-closed Carver Theater at 6016 Northwest Seventh Avenue in Miami into an 11-story, 71-unit affordable apartment building. In Miami’s Little River neighborhood, Midtown Capital Partners plans a 22-story, 348-unit Live Local Act tower at 7501 and 7553 Northeast Second Avenue.
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