Developer Lewis Swezy proposes a 132-unit, age-restricted affordable apartment project in Miami-Dade County’s Princeton neighborhood.
The plan comes as South Florida developers continue to seize on low-income housing, which can better withstand the current economic climate of elevated interest rates, as well as skittish debt and equity funding.
Swezy, through his Miami Lakes-based Centennial Management, wants to build an eight-story building on a 1.7-acre vacant site at 13841 Southwest 252nd Street in unincorporated south Miami-Dade, according to Centennial’s application filed to the county last month. The firm is asking the county for an administrative site plan review.
The project, called Princeton Manor, will offer 75 one-bedroom apartments and 57 two-bedroom apartments. It would target households earning 30 percent to 70 percent of the area median income. Miami-Dade’s annual AMI is $79,400.
The application is labeled LIHTC, meaning Centennial likely would use the low-income housing tax credit program to finance Princeton Manor. Under the program, developers go through a competitive application process for tax credits awarded by the state. Developers then sell the credits to investors, which provides equity for projects and gives investors a dollar-for-dollar reduction on their federal taxes.
Swezy has been working with the tax credit program since the federal government introduced it in 1986, he told The Real Deal last year.
Using LIHTC, Centennial started construction last year of the 190-unit Cordova Estates with seven buildings at 321 and 329 East Davis Parkway in Florida City.
The firm’s portfolio spans 3,500 affordable units and about 227 acres of land in south Miami-Dade, including in Florida City and the neighborhoods of Naranja and Princeton.
Affordable housing’s resilience to economic headwinds is partly rooted in the financing mechanisms for these projects. Aside from LIHTC, governments provide grants and loans that come at much lower interest rates than private debt. Also, South Florida’s yearslong issue of a lack of below-market rate housing ensures hefty demand for new units. The tri-county region’s crisis was exacerbated from an influx of out-of-state transplants from 2020 to 2022, which drove up demand for market-rate apartments and led to record rent hikes.
In other recent proposals, Coastland Residential wants to build an eight-story, 371-unit building
where 55 of the apartments would be for households earning no more than 120 percent of AMI. The project is proposed for 4201, 4321, 4351 and 4383 Southwest 75th Avenue in the Glenvar Heights neighborhood of unincorporated Miami-Dade.
Pinnacle plans a five-story, 120-unit affordable housing building at 10455 Old Cutler Road, near Cutler Bay in south Miami-Dade.