NR Investments gets $14M subsidy to build workforce and affordable housing

NR Investments will get $14 million in property tax rebates and grant money in exchange for providing 252 units of affordable and workforce housing in a 29-story tower in the Omni area.

The Miami City Commission, acting as the Omni Community Redevelopment Agency’s board of directors, unanimously allocated $5.5 million to the developer on Thursday, to help fund its $80 million mixed-use project at 70 Northeast 17th Street. Headed by Nir Shoshani, Ron Gottesmann, and Terry Wellons, NR Investments previously built Filling Station Lofts and Canvas Condominiums in the Omni area.

NR Investment’s latest project will include 41,288 square feet of offices, 4,413 square feet of retail space, as well as the rent-restricted apartments.

A property tax rebate equivalent to $8.5 million had been granted to NR Investments by the Omni CRA last October. The total subsidy amounts to $55,000 a unit, said Adam Old, the Omni CRA’s director of policy and planning.

In its proposal, NR Investments said that the subsidy was needed to make up for “an estimated $17.8 million in rent losses.”

The apartments will be set aside for people making between 60 percent and 140 percent of Miami-Dade County’s median area income, which is currently $54,900 a year. The project’s 188 studios will be rented for between $889 and $2,075 a month. The 60 one-bedroom units will have rents ranging from $953 and $2,224 a month. Four two-bedroom apartments, reserved for a household making 140 percent of Miami-Dade’s median household income, will rent for $2,670 a month.

The median rent in Omni is $2,146 a month, according to Niche.com. Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, city of Miami planners predicted that Omni rents would climb higher. The development agreement with the Omni CRA freezes the rents for NR Investments’ project until 2047.

According to Florida International University’s affordable housing master plan, commissioned by the city, Miami’s median annual household income is $33,999. For renters, the median household income for the city is $28,650 a year. Due to rising rents and property values, 57 percent of Miami’s households spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing.

Most of Omni, however, falls within Miami’s waterfront adjacent District 2, where the median household income for renters is $61,850 a year, according to FIU’s report. Nevertheless, half of District 2’s renters are cost burdened, while 26 percent are “severely-cost burdened,” according to FIU’s report.

In his letter to the Omni CRA, NR Investments’ lawyer, Javier Fernandez, stated that the project will “provide needed housing inventory to critical employees within the Miami market” such as hospitality service workers, teachers, police officers, firefighters, registered nurses, and recent college graduates.

NR Investments invested $4.8 million to buy 22,625 square feet of land for the proposed mixed-use project between September 2016 and April 2019.

The company aims to start construction in July, and complete the project in January 2023.