Midtown Capital Partners advanced its plan to build 300 apartments, including 60 affordable housing units, on a parking lot at a Plantation office park, under the state’s Live Local Act.
The Plantation City Council on Wednesday unanimously approved a site plan for the six-story multifamily development on a parking lot that has an industrial land use designation and is zoned for light industrial operations.
The 7.9-acre development site at 7510 West Sunrise Boulevard is an under-utilized parking lot at the Plantation Pointe office park, where entertainment technology company Magic Leap and pet supplies retailer Chewy have their headquarters.
“The location is a parking lot that is seldom used. If you drive by there, on most occasions, you’ll notice that it’s vacant,” Dan Holmes, Plantation’s director of planning, zoning and economic development, said at the city council meeting.
Miami-based Midtown Capital Partners, led by CEO and managing partner Alejandro Velez, bought the parking lot as part of its $56.6 million acquisition in 2017 of multiple properties at Plantation Pointe, including two buildings at 7600 and 7700 West Sunrise Boulevard that span about 221,000 square feet.
The 60 rent-restricted affordable housing units that Midtown Capital plans to build will include 10 studios, 23 apartments with one bedroom, 21 with two bedrooms and six with three bedrooms.
Those 60 apartments, which equate to 20 percent of the 300 planned apartments at Plantation Pointe, will remain affordable housing units for 20 years under a declaration of restrictive deed covenants that Midtown Capital agreed to execute.
Under the Live Local Act, if a developer chooses to designate at least 40 percent of planned dwellings as affordable housing, the project is subject only to administrative municipal approval and bypasses a local government’s review in a public hearing.
If at least 10 percent of the dwellings are designated as affordable housing, the state law gives local governments the option to hold a public hearing to review the project.
“In this case, the applicant [Midtown Capital] is requesting to provide 20 percent of the units as affordable,” Holmes said. “Under the Live Local Act, they’re asking to bypass … rezoning and land use [changes]. So, that’s something the city council has the discretion to do or not.”
Plantation City Council member Jennifer Andreu unsuccessfully proposed a declaration of restrictive covenants under which 60 of Midtown Capital’s planned apartments would remain affordable housing units for 30 years instead of 20 years.
“I feel 20 [years] is a reasonable request,” said Timothy J. Fadgen, another member of the city council, “because they are giving us double [the percentage of units] what they’re required to under the Live Local [Act].”
