Helm Equities’ Live Local Act project in the Miami Design District scored approval, despite some city review board members expressing unease with the tower’s design.
On Wednesday, the Miami Urban Development Review Board passed Helm’s proposal with some recommended design tweaks.
It also approved Namdar Group’s 1,011-unit multifamily tower in Brickell, with some discussion over the neighborhood’s increasing traffic congestion.
The board also approved Crescent Heights’ second phase to its Forma apartment tower in Edgewater, with most on the committee speaking positively about the project.
New York-based Helm, an affiliate of JEMB Realty, garnered the most debate among board members. Designed by Cube 3, the project will consist of a 36-story tower with 278 residential units and an adjacent eight-story building with over 101,000 square feet of offices and some retail on a nearly 2-acre site at 220 Northeast 43rd Street.
Out of the 278 units, about 116 will be apartments for rent at workforce rates, and the rest will be condos for sale at market rates. That aligns with Florida’s Live Local Act, which requires at least 40 percent of units be reserved for households earning no more than 120 percent of the area median income. The balance of residences can be either market-rate apartments or condos.
In exchange, Live Local Act project developers can build bigger projects than allowed on a site’s zoning or receive big tax breaks.
Board member Gia Zapattini said the design looks complicated.
“There’s a lot going on in this project. There’s curves and arches. I understand you are trying to do something unique for the Design District and trying to do something cool,” she told the architect during the meeting. “It’s a very complicated little project.”
The mix of workforce rentals and high-end condos in one building adds to the complexity, Zapattini said. She encouraged Helm and Cube 3 to simplify the project, arguing that it will be costly and difficult to develop a building as “ornamental” as the one shown on renderings.
“This is a very tricky project to build,” she said.
But others gushed over the design. Board member Ignacio Permuy said the tower has “a lot of things going on … that are very, very good,” and board member Francisco Perez-Azua said the project is “a bit eclectic” and has “a lot going on.”
“But I see the value in that and the interest of that. I think it’s a nice project,” Perez-Azua said.
The board voted in favor of Helm’s project, with recommendations that the firm tweak the façade in places to give it some variation and also tweak the renderings so they’re more truthful to floor plans.
Namdar Realty, a Great Neck, New York-based firm, plans a 42-story tower, also under the Live Local Act, at 250 and 296 Southwest Seventh Street. Designed by Behar Font & Partners, the tower will include 405 apartments at workforce rents designated for households earning no more than 120 percent of the AMI.
The project yielded some discussion about Brickell’s ever-worsening traffic and also about the tower’s garage.
Crescent Heights’ Arquitectonica-designed project in Edgewater sailed past the board. Miami-based Crescent –– led by Sonny Kahn, Russell Galbut and Bruce Menin –– wants to build a 42-story, 360-unit multifamily building and an adjacent six-story commercial building with retail and office uses at 200 Northeast 30th Street. The site is immediately west of Crescent’s 40-story, 588-unit Forma apartment tower, which the firm completed last year.
The tower was designed as a “sister project” to Forma, the developer’s attorney said.
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