Resia plans 1,300-unit apartment complex in North Miami Beach, amid record South Florida multifamily construction

Resia advanced plans for a 1,296-unit apartment project in North Miami Beach, amid record multifamily construction in South Florida that threatens market oversaturation. 

Resia, a subsidiary of Brazilian real estate firm MRV, scored preliminary approval on Monday for the New North Town Center project with five 12-story buildings at 15530, 15540 and 15780 West Dixie Highway, according to the development firm and city records. 

The North Miami Beach Planning and Zoning Board approved a development agreement and the project’s site plan. Next, the city commission will give a final vote on the project at a yet unscheduled meeting. 

Designed by Bellon Architecture, New North Town Center would include a pair of seven-story garages and a three-story garage with 1,714 spaces, combined, Resia’s application shows. Apartments would range from one- to three-bedroom units. 

New North Town Center was in the works long before Resia bought the site, with a bigger project previously planned. An entity led by Gabriel Boano, owner of Bay Harbor Islands-based real estate firm Art + Tec Development, scored approval in 2018 for a 2.5 million-square-foot “micro-city” project with a 175-key hotel, 175,000 square feet of retail and a school for 2,000 students. The plan also included either 1,500 residential units and 260,000 square feet of offices, or 1,650 residential units and 150,000 square feet of offices. 

That project was never built. In 2022, Boano’s entity sold the 17.8-acre site to Resia for $57 million, according to records. The property is a former Teco Gas Plant.

Resia doesn’t plan to use the Live Local Act, a state law that allows developers to build bigger projects in exchange for providing affordable and workforce units. The Miami-Dade County-based firm pointed out that New North Town Center is smaller than the allowable density on the site and that it’s been working with the city on the development since before the state approved the Live Local Act last year. 

Led by Ernesto Lopes, Resia also is developing a 420-unit apartment complex with four five-story buildings between Northwest 159th Street and Northwest 161st Street, immediately east of I-95 in the Golden Glades area of unincorporated Miami-Dade. 

Last year, Resia filed one of the first Live Local Act project applications in South Florida, proposing a 948-unit complex with four 12-story buildings at 7701 Northwest 79th Avenue in Medley. 

South Florida’s multifamily market boomed in the past four years due to unprecedented demand from out-of-state transplants, prompting record rent hikes and a construction spree. Over 40,700 units are currently under construction across South Florida, second only to the record set in 2022 when 42,500 units were under construction, according to data from CoStar Group. This has prompted concerns that South Florida may be getting overbuilt, just as rental demand has tempered and rents have plateaued, or dropped in some submarkets. 

Also in North Miami Beach, Estate Companies this year completed the 23-story, 367-unit Soleste NoMi Beach at 16395 Biscayne Boulevard. On an adjacent site at 16375 Biscayne Boulevard, Estate is developing the 29-story, 363-unit Soleste on the Bay apartment tower.