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South Florida

Pinnacle Housing and Ascend Properties plan 272 apartments at Waterford at Blue Lagoon

Rendering of Oasis at Blue Lagoon and Michael Wohl
Rendering of Oasis at Blue Lagoon and Michael Wohl

Furthering the trend of incorporating apartments into office parks, Pinnacle Housing Group and Ascend Properties, both multifamily developers, are planning to build 272 apartments at the Waterford at Blue Lagoon in the Airport West submarket.

The developers said they plan to break ground on the roughly $70 million Oasis at Blue Lagoon in first quarter 2017.

The main target market for units at Oasis at Blue Lagoon will be the 11,000 employees at the Waterford at Blue Lagoon, the developers said. The park is home to more than 100 multi-national firms.

Michael Wohl, a partner of the Pinnacle Housing Group, which had been an affordable housing developer but has expanded to market rate housing, told The Real Deal that he is counting on the development to be successful because there are no Class A residential properties within three miles of the site. Miami International Airport is nearby, and the the 11-million-square-foot Airport West office market and the six-million-square-foot Coral Gables office market are a short distance away. The location also has easy access to major expressways.

The apartments at Oasis at Blue Lagoon, which will be located on a 22- acre lake, will be market rate. Some of the units will be dedicated to corporate tenants, Wohl told TRD.

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Pinnacle partner Ascend Properties, received approval for rezoning the 7.2-acre parcel where Oasis at Blue Lagoon will be built about a year ago. The designation for the land in the Miami-Dade comprehensive plan was already office/residential, but the existing zoning at the time was industrial, Wohl said. The parcel was not part of the Waterford at Blue Lagoon’s original DRI (development of regional impact), although it is part of the park.

Ascend paid $7.6 million for the land on Northwest Seventh Street and east of Northwest 65th Avenue in May 2015. The seller was the Valls Group, which owns the La Carreta restaurant chain and Versailles, among other businesses.

In the future, “you will see more apartments in office parks,” Troy Ballard, senior managing director at Cushman & Wakefield in Fort Lauderdale told TRD.

According to the Cushman & Wakefield Marketbeat Office Snapshot Q3 2016, “One aspect of new office development has been the fierce competition from multifamily development for the same land. Traditionally, it was easier to finance” multifamily because these developments take less time to build than offices.

Nevertheless, the report says: “We may be approaching a shift in the market where office demand and rising rents make it more viable to go with office instead of multifamily.”