Chetrit’s $1B mixed-use Miami River project to launch sales this summer

Rendering of Chetrit's Miami River project
Rendering of Chetrit's Miami River project

UPDATED June 21, 2016 5:15 p.m. Chetrit Group’s massive Miami River mixed-use project will launch condo sales later this summer, and is planning to bring on a major hotel flag, The Real Deal has learned.

Melissa Tapanes Llahues, an attorney who represents Chetrit Group in its development, told TRD that she is now working on condo documents and permitting. She said the developers have hired Fortune International Group to handle sales, which will begin “in a couple of months.”

She also said the project will soon announce a “very cool” hotel flag.

New York-based Chetrit Group, local developer Ari Pearl and partner JDS Development Group plan a $1 billion, as-yet-unnamed project that will be built between the Miami River and Southwest Seventh Avenue, and between Southwest Second Avenue and Southwest Third Avenue.

Plans for the site include four towers, a hotel, shops, restaurants, and a public river walk with boat slips.

In October 2015, the Miami City Commission approved a development agreement and rezoning on the 10-acre site. To obtain city approval for higher density, the developers promised to invest $14 million into an affordable workforce housing fund, as well as pay $7 million for public infrastructure surrounding the project, including renovating nearby Jose Marti Park. Raymond Jungles has designed the plans for the park.

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The project will be built in five phases. The complex is planned to have 1,678 residential units, 330 hotel rooms, 266,000 square feet of retail and office space, and more than 2,000 spaces.

The first tower will have 200 hotel rooms and 328 condos. The developer is also getting 1.2 million square feet of “air rights” from the city at $17.82 a square foot, or $21 million, which is being used for the public improvements.

Pearl and the Chetrit Group have been working on the project’s design since they assembled the land for roughly $100 million in 2014. Some of the properties they acquired included the Finnegan’s River restaurant and the Pleasure Emporium adult superstore.

The developers and their architect, Kobi Karp, had consulted with the Miami River Commission on the site’s design which calls for restaurants and shops to line the river walk that will be accessible to Brickell and East Little Havana residents. The recently opened River Yacht Club is on part of the property.

“It’s going to be awesome,” Tapanes Llahues said of the project. “It’s got that unique blend of cool and luxury but grit that makes Miami and Little Havana and the River District unique.”