After nixing condo plans, Midtown 6 revived as rental tower

Nine months after pulling the plug on their plans to build a condo tower called Midtown 6, Magellan Development Group and Midtown Development have announced they’re revisiting the project with a new angle: rental apartments.

The developers announced Monday they’re again partnering to build a 447-unit apartment building called Midtown 6 with ground-floor retail on the 3100 block of Northeast First Avenue. Magellan and Midtown hope to break ground on the 32-story project sometime next year, according to the announcement.

Midtown 6’s history dates back to the previous real estate cycle when Magellan and Midtown Development wanted to build a 398-unit condo tower on a 2.14-acre patch of vacant land down the street from the Midtown 4 condominium. After terminating their declaration of condominium in September, news about the project’s fate became hard to come by. The vacant land is at times used for Art Miami and Art Wynwood exhibit tents.

Meanwhile, the two have made serious headway on their 400-unit Midtown 5 rental project at 3201 Northeast First Avenue, which broke ground last June and has since topped off at 26 stories.

Midtown Miami is seeing a wave of new rental developments: besides Midtown 5, Wharton Equity Partners and Mack Real Estate Group topped off their 195-unit District 36 rental building. AMLI Residential, one of South Florida’s largest apartment developers, also recently bought a 6.6-acre site at 3010 Northeast First Avenue where it has approvals to build 700 rental units. – Sean Stewart-Muniz