From still left: Mayor Levine Cava, Stephen Blumenthal, and Jose Hevia with a rendering of the prepared industrial complex outdoors the UDB (Coral Rock Development, Aligned Authentic Estate Holdings)
Just as builders Stephen Blumenthal and Jose Hevia scored pivotal acceptance for their industrial megaproject, a new thorn emerged for their plans.
On Thursday, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava vetoed commissioners’ determination to expand the Urban Growth Boundary to involve the just about 400-acre web page exactly where Blumenthal and Hevia want to build their challenge.
The UDB, a greenbelt of wetlands, farmlands and if not vacant land, is intended to avert encroachment of new construction towards the Everglades and Biscayne Bay. Any initiatives to broaden the UDB to enable for enhancement has proved controversial in the course of Miami-Dade’s background.
Blumenthal and Hevia’s bid to build the South Dade Logistics & Technological know-how District pitted commissioners from every single other, as properly as professional-growth inhabitants towards environmentalists. It took the builders five tries this calendar year before commissioners granted their ask for on Nov. 1.
Levine Cava’s veto was anticipated, as her administration has constantly opposed the project, insisting that there is sufficient developable industrial land inside of the UDB and that South Dade Logistics would necessitate high priced infrastructure enlargement.
In her veto message, Levine Cava also introduced up flood challenges, particularly in light of Hurricane Ian. She also struck back again at the developers’ insistence that the task would be an financial boon for south Miami-Dade, producing employment for the community.
“This software prioritizes shorter-time period money achieve — with no assure of task development — at the expenditure of our shared economic prosperity and our valuable pure surroundings,” Levine Cava claimed in an emailed veto message.
Commissioners authorised the task in an 8 to 4 vote. Commissioners can continue to overturn Levine Cava’s veto at their future conference on Tuesday, as extended as all eight commissioners who earlier voted in favor of the venture exhibit up and select to override the veto.
Blumenthal, principal of Coral Gables-primarily based Coral Rock Progress, and Hevia, president of Miami-based mostly Aligned Real Estate Holdings, want to make South Dade Logistics on the southeast corner of the Florida Turnpike and Southwest 122nd Avenue
In a statement to the Miami Herald, the developers explained they “look forward to the veto override vote.”
