The Related Group has the zoning it needs to build a 75-foot-tall office building on Terminal Island in Miami Beach.
The Miami Beach City Commission on Wednesday unanimously increased height limits on Terminal Island’s I-1 district from 40 feet to 75 feet. The zoning change will enable Related to pursue a 160,000-square-foot office building that will include helicopter pads, a mega-yacht marina and an 11,250-square-foot restaurant.
The project will be built on a 3.7-acre site that Related purchased for $9.5 million in 2013.
Related, led by Jorge Pérez, originally intended to construct luxury condominiums on the site. Its most recent condo proposal was One Island Park, a 34-story building with 90 units. But in June, Pérez’s son, Jon Paul Pérez, the company’s president, announced Related’s intention to construct Class-A office space on Terminal Island instead.
Miami Beach officials have been considering ways to encourage construction of Class-A office buildings to diversify the city’s economy beyond tourism and entertainment. Areas considered include Sunset Harbour, the Alton Road corridor in South Beach, the 41st Street corridor in Mid-Beach, and North Beach. Real estate brokers and lobbyists have pushed raising height limits as a means of attracting Class-A office development.
Increasing heights for new office buildings on CD-2 zoned properties along Alton Road from 50 and 60 feet to 75 feet was originally part of the height increase ordinance. However, after strong opposition from residents living west of Alton Road during the commission’s Dec. 9 meeting, Alton Road was stricken from the proposed ordinance.
City staff told commissioners that the Alton Road height increase will be brought back to the full commission for approval after it is vetted by the city’s land use and planning boards.