Members of the Miami Beach Design Review Board on Tuesday rejected new proposals submitted by mega-developer Russell Galbut and called for design changes to be made to a mammoth, planned South Beach mixed-use project.
The Wave development will be located between Fifth and Seventh streets and between Alton Road and West Avenue. As The Real Deal reported on Monday, the project would total 541,653 square feet and include 904 residential units and 1,499 parking spaces in a five-building complex anchored by the 113-foot shell of the former South Shore Hospital. Four new buildings ranging between 53 and 75 feet in height will complete the project.
Initial plans for the buildings on the 500 and 600 block of Alton Road were approved by the Miami Beach Design Review Board two years ago, but there have been extensive modifications to those earlier designs. As part of the project, developer Crescent Heights has also added an additional building fronting the 600-700 block of West Avenue that will include significant retail space on the ground floor.
On Tuesday, Galbut’s team unveiled further changes involving balconies, parking areas and ground-floor spaces, asking for a three-foot height variance to compensate for raising the building to meet minimum federal flood control levels. New plans also call for above-ground parking, instead of previously proposed underground parking.
One major design change — redesigning balconies so they extend outwards in an undulating design — was rejected outright by the board, which asked the developers’ team to resubmit some of their proposals at the next board meeting on June 2. A report from Miami Beach Planning Director Thomas Mooney called the balconies “monotonous” and said the projecting balconies would block view corridors. The board did express approval of some design changes dealing with walkways in the project, but said that overall, many of the design changes proposed need re-working.