Shoma Group wants to build a 404-unit apartment tower with workforce housing in Kendall, amid a torrent of Live Local Act project proposals.
The Coral Gables-based firm, led by married couple Masoud and Stephanie Shojaee, proposes a 31-story tower on a 1.9-acre site at 9525 North Kendall Drive in unincorporated Miami-Dade County, according to an application Shoma filed to the county this month. The project would include 140,000 square feet of commercial space, including offices.
An entity led by Jeffrey Fiorentino and Brian Bell owns the site, which now consists of three two-story buildings spanning a combined 43,500 square feet, records show. One of the buildings is home to sports bar Old Tom’s and the rest are offices.
The application does not specify whether Shoma has the development site under contract.
The Live Local Act, approved last year, allows developers to build bigger projects than site zonings permit in exchange for designating at least 40 percent of units for households earning no more than 120 percent of the area median income for 30 years or longer. In mixed-use projects, at least 65 percent of total square footage has to be residential.
Shoma’s application doesn’t specify how many units would be at below-market rents or what AMIs the apartments would target. Under the policy, at least 162 of the apartments at the building have to be workforce priced.
The tower would consist of 89 studios, 121 one-bedroom apartments, 157 two-bedroom apartments and 37 three-bedroom units, according to the application.
Shoma seeks a pre-application meeting for administrative site plan review. Pre-application meetings are generally done so developers can gauge Miami-Dade staff member’s input on projects before official proposals are submitted.
State lawmakers this year tweaked the Live Local Act to clarify guidelines on floor area ratio, generally a measurement of a project’s size. Since then, new proposals have abounded.
Bazbaz Development wants to build a 544-unit Live Local Act apartment project that would rise 48 stories at 2110, 2118 and 2134 North Miami Avenue, as well as 2101, 2129 and 2135 Northwest Miami Court in Miami’s Wynwood. That would be the tallest tower in the neighborhood that historically has been restricted to 12-story heights.
In Fort Lauderdale, Moderno Development Group and 75Invest Group propose the 27-story, 290-unit 500 Lofts, a Live Local Act rental building at 501 Southwest Second Avenue. And in Model City, a neighborhood in unincorporated Miami-Dade, an entity led by Alberto Fernandez Falcon, Rene Sanchez and Sam Jazayri wants to build an 11-story, 112-unit project under the state legislation on the northwest corner of Northwest 27th Avenue and Northwest 46th Street.