Resia relinquished development of the Palmetto Station apartment complex in Medley to a real estate group that is enlarging the project to 1,152 units, The Real Deal has learned.
Jose Gonzalez of GLC Real Estate, Ivan Herrera of Unicapital Asset Management Group and Alex Lastra of Desarrollo are now working on the workforce housing project at the Palmetto Metrorail station in Medley, Gonzalez said. The trio took over the project in the second quarter.
The site, which the developers are leasing from Miami-Dade County under a 90-year term, is at 7701 Northwest 79th Avenue.
In a statement, Resia confirmed it’s “no longer involved with this project” and it “transferred the development rights to another developer.”
Resia, a Miami-based developer of multifamily units nationwide, is a subsidiary of publicly traded Brazilian homebuilder MRV.
Gonzalez started Miami-based GLC Real Estate after more than 27 years with Miami-based Florida East Coast Industries, the parent company of the Brightline passenger train that also developed properties at the train’s Florida stations. Herrera is an insurance tycoon who co-founded UniVista Insurance with his wife, Ania Herrera, in 2009. In January, he launched his commercial real estate firm, Unicapital, after partially selling UniVista for $700 million. Lastra started his Miami-based firm, Desarrollo, in 2018 after 15 years with Atlantic Pacific Companies.
The trio tweaked Palmetto Station’s plans to now consist of one eight-story building and a pair of 12-story buildings with 7,000 square feet of office and retail space, as well as 1,742 parking spaces in a garage and surface lots, according to a filing submitted to Miami-Dade County early this month. They also plan renovations of the Palmetto Metrorail stop.
Resia, in partnership with foster care assistance nonprofit MagicWaste Youth Foundation, originally planned four 12-story buildings with 948 units, combined, as well as 7,500 square feet of retail and a 1,596-space garage. In 2023, Miami-Dade planning and zoning officials approved the development.
Resia’s plan was for a Live Local Act project, according to its filings to Miami-Dade.
The new developers won’t use Live Local and still will designate all 1,152 units as workforce rentals for households earning no more than 120 percent of the area median income, Gonzalez said. Projects at major transit hubs, such as the Palmetto Metrorail station, already are allowed higher density under county legislation.
Miami-Dade’s annual AMI is $87,200, according to the Florida Housing Finance Corporation.
Palmetto Station was reconfigured partly because Resia had planned to use prefabricated kitchens and bathrooms, Gonzalez said. Resia, which has its own manufacturing facility in Fairburn, Georgia, completed its first project using modular kitchens and bathrooms last month. That complex is the 42-unit Resia Golden Glades at 15955 Northwest Sixth Avenue in unincorporated Miami-Dade.
“We redesigned it into U-shaped buildings with a garage in the middle,” Gonzalez said, adding that Resia’s design was for linear buildings.
Construction of Palmetto Station is expected to start next summer, he said.
Residential development is spilling over from Hialeah to Medley, a town largely home to industrial properties.
GLC Real Estate, Unicapital and Desarrollo also eventually expect to build an affordable housing project on the site of Miami-Dade’s overflow animal shelter at 7401 Northwest 74th Street. The trio and the county are partnering to develop a new 25,000-square-foot animal shelter at 29500 Harriet Tubman Highway in an unincorporated area of south Miami-Dade. Once completed, the facility will replace the county’s existing overflow shelter in Medley, and the county will transfer the Medley site to the developers.
