Lennar and its partners dusted off a three-year-old proposal for a megaproject on a 960-acre land tract outside of Miami-Dade County’s Urban Development Boundary.
Miami-based homebuilding giant Lennar and South Florida’s Easton real estate family want to develop City Park with 7,800 for-sale and for-rent homes; 1.4 million square feet of commercial space; and 249 acres of open space, according to a pre-application they submitted to the county late last month. The site is between Southwest 136th and Southwest 152nd streets, and between Southwest 162nd and Krome avenues, near the Country Walk neighborhood in unincorporated Miami-Dade.
Dallas, Texas-based homebuilder Bill Albers also is partnering on the project, according to Ed Easton, the Easton family’s patriarch and founder of Miami-based Easton Group.
The site consists of 11 lots primarily owned by Lennar, the Eastons, the Dallas investor and the Cheng family, according to records and Easton. Freight rail company CSX Transportation owns two lots. John C. Cheng Escartin is managing partner and international consultant for Panamanian tax, assurance and professional services firm HLB International, according to records. It has not been decided whether the Chengs will partner on the project or sell their properties to the developers, Easton said.
A UDB expansion is one of the most controversial proposals a developer can file in Miami-Dade, often drawing opposition from environmentalists and others seeking to stop suburban sprawl. Opponents often decry UDB expansions as development encroachment onto wetlands, open land that could be needed for preservation of Everglades National Park and Biscayne National Park, and farmland needed to meet the demand for produce.
UDB expansions require a super-majority vote by county commissioners, and often also face a mayor’s veto and lawsuits.
Lennar and the Eastons first proposed City Park in 2022 and backed out of pursuing the project at the time.
“We decided in the middle of it that it was not a good time to do it,” Easton said, “because we thought the housing market wasn’t as much in need of something like this as it is today.”
Since then, South Florida’s housing demand has grown, necessitating projects such as the City Park UDB expansion, Easton said, adding that Miami-Dade also struggles with a lack of developable land. Also, he said the City Park land has no environmental significance.
“Sensible development on non-environmentally sensitive land like this one makes sense,” he said. “There is a need for more land for sensible development in Miami. This particular parcel does not have any environmental sensitivities.”
The 2022 City Park concept book attached to the recent application depicts a somewhat self-supporting mixed-use development with its own schools, offices, retail and entertainment venues such as a lagoon or water park. The project would include the Village Core district with restaurants and entertainment, as well as a 10-acre farm.
The residences will include single-family homes, townhomes and apartments, according to the application. The project will include below-market rate homes, Easton said.
The developers are in the very first inning of the approval process, which could take until late next year or early 2027 to reach a final vote by commissioners, he said.
The last major proposal for UDB expansion was Coral Rock and Aligned Real Estate’s South Dade Logistics & Technology District on 379 acres. The developers won commission approval after five public hearings and survived Mayor Daniella Levine Cava’s veto in 2022, but lost in court when a judge determined last year the county had missed an approval deadline.
Last month, a group of landowners, through their Herkoz and Alflo Sunset affiliates, proposed a 64.8-acre UDB expansion for a project with 1,200 single-family homes and apartments, and up to 90,000 square feet of retail. The site is on the northwest corner of Southwest 137th Avenue and Southwest 248th Street.
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