Michael Swerdlow is lining up another public-private partnership with Miami-Dade County that would entail the development of a $295 million mixed-use project on 37.7 acres near Miami’s Liberty City neighborhood.
On Tuesday, the Miami-Dade County Commission housing committee approved a resolution directing Mayor Daniella Levine Cava and her staff to negotiate an agreement with a joint venture between Coconut Grove-based Swerdlow Group; Reston, Virginia-based SJM Partners’ Stephen Garchik and Alben Duffie to build a three-phase development at 7200 Northwest 22nd Avenue. Roughly 24 acres of the site is known as Poinciana Industrial Center, which will require environmental cleanup, county memos show.
Since the 1980s, county officials have unsuccessfully tried to have previous developers propose new projects on the property. “This development has been 40 years in the making,” said county commissioner Marleine Bastein, who chairs the housing committee and whose district includes the project site. “Residents have been asking for this.”
Swerdlow has been eyeing the Poinciana properties, consisting of six vacant lots, since 2022 when his firm submitted a letter of intent to Levine Cava’s office to develop an affordable housing project.
Since then, Swerdlow’s plans have evolved into a project that will consist of 809 mixed-income apartments, 470,000 square feet of industrial space, 4,000 square feet of retail, a hospitality training center and a clinic, according to an updated June 16 letter of intent. Coconut Grove-based Arquitectonica is designing the project.
Swerdlow is offering to buy one of the sites for $33 million, with discounts based on the amount it will cost to clean up the parcel, the letter states. The offer is based on a 2023 appraisal by Cushman & Wakefield commissioned by Swerdlow, county documents show.
The first phase entails 155 affordable units for seniors earning 60 percent of Miami-Dade’s area median income (AMI), which is $87,200 for a one person-household. Swerdlow would also build a 250,000-square-foot warehouse that would be occupied by Mediterranean Shipping Company, the letter states.
For the 155 affordable housing units set aside for seniors, Swerdlow proposes paying the county $5,000 per unit built, 15 percent of the net cash flow and 30 percent of the developer’s fee. Swerdlow would pay the county $5,000 per unit and 10 percent of the net cash flow for the remaining units.
For the second phase, Swerdlow plans on building 110,000 square feet of industrial space and 175 apartments for tenants earning 60 to 120 percent of the AMI. And the third phase involves the development of 479 apartments for residents earning 40 to 120 percent of the AMI, the hospitality training center and the retail spaces.
Separately, in April, Miami-Dade County commissioners approved a public-private partnership with Swerdlow and Duffie to develop Little River District, a $3 billion mixed-use community that will include 5,000 apartments, including more than 3,700 units set aside for affordable and workforce housing. The planned development straddles Miami’s Little River and Little Haiti neighborhoods.
