A handful of developers have found a loophole that allows them to avoid a public bidding process when picking up sites in Miami-Dade County.
The no-bid surplus land deals may offer developers a below-market price, or no price at all, for the properties. In our latest issue, Francisco Alvarado reports on how this came to be.
A county administrative order approved by the commission in 2022 authorizes any Miami-Dade official to back a developer’s proposal for underutilized government properties. In exchange, the developers promise to build hundreds of affordable and workforce housing units or generate hundreds of jobs.
An affordable housing builder who spoke on the condition of anonymity said that developers are arranging these back-door deals before they are announced on any public agenda.
“There is no advertisement for selling the land and there is no competitive process. You only hear about them once they are placed on a county commission agenda,” the builder said. “By then, the deals have already been cooked.”
Miami-Dade commissioner Danielle Cohen Higgins backed Terra’s no-bid purchase of nearly 11 acres of surplus land close to the South Dade Government Center in Cutler Bay. Her office worked with the county’s Internal Services department to determine if the surface parking lots qualified as surplus. A majority of the site did, and the developer signed a lease with the county.
Terra, led by David Martin, would get the bigger piece of the site for 99 years to build a 352-unit workforce housing project, with an option to build another 322 affordable housing units on the remaining land if Miami-Dade stopped using the land within five years, county records show.
County memos initially stated that the county would receive $27 million over the 99-year term if only the first project got built, and another $71 million in rental income if the second project was constructed. But when the proposal was placed on a county agenda in September, the 99-year lease rent projections had grown by $129 million.
The county and Terra did not provide an explanation for the disparity. Two commissioners, Eileen Higgins and René Garcia, had issues with the proposal.
That led to a compromise. Cohen Higgins and Terra agreed to reserve 10 percent of the apartments for low-income residents.
Cohen Higgins defended the no-bid deal. She said in a statement that housing affordability is at “crisis levels” and a “top concern” for residents.
No-bid deals make sense when they address an immediate need or emergency, said Robert Jarvis, a Nova Southeastern University ethics law professor. An affordable housing crisis isn’t an emergency, he said.
“It could be a case of ‘thank God someone is taking this property off our hands and it is not just sitting there unused.’ But a bidding process is designed to uncover if someone else can come in and give you a better deal,” Jarvis added.
What we’re thinking about: Soccer superstar Lionel Messi is in contract to buy four condos at Cipriani Residences in Miami, which is under construction, according to the Wall Street Journal. What kind of celebrity discount could he be getting? Send me a note at kk@therealdeal.com.
CLOSING TIME
Residential: Designer Regine Traulsen and her husband, former New York City commissioner Bill Diamond, sold their longtime Palm Beach home at 220 Wells Road for $16.2 million. A trust named for the address bought the 4,700-square-foot, four-bedroom house.
Construction loan: PMG, Lion Development Group and Marc Roberts Companies secured a $215M construction loan for the planned 38 West Eleventh Residences Miami. Steven Tananbaum’s New York City-based GoldenTree Asset Management is providing the loan for the 659-unit short-term rental-friendly condo tower near the nightclub E11even and its two-tower branded development.
NEW TO THE MARKET
A seven-bedroom, 18,000-square-foot mansion in the gated Stone Creek Ranch neighborhood near Delray Beach hit the market for $45 million. The 2.7-acre lakefront property, at 9200 Rockybrook Way in unincorporated Palm Beach County, is listed with Senada Adzem of Douglas Elliman.
A thing we’ve learned
Manny Chamizo, after being sentenced in a criminal case of stalking, has kept his job with One Sotheby’s International Realty. Chamizo, who last month received the brokerage’s top commercial agent award, pleaded no contest and was sentenced to a year of probation for allegedly harassing and stalking the sellers of a Coral Gables office building. One Sotheby’s has been suing the sellers, a Miami couple, for the allegedly unpaid commission on the deal.
Elsewhere in Florida
- A last-minute controversial zoning code change passed in 2023 will allow David Martin’s Terra to build three stories taller on a site in Coconut Grove. Terra is taking advantage of the height increase for The Well, up to eight stories from five, for the site at the corner of Tigertail Avenue and Mary Street, Coconut Grove Spotlight reports. The code change was initially proposed to exempt Coconut Grove and other areas with a Neighborhood Conservation District zoning overlay, but then-City Attorney Victoria Mendez noted a substitution as commissioners prepared to vote.
- MS Leisure, corporate owner of the Miami Seaquarium and other related companies, filed for bankruptcy as the seaquarium tries to fight being evicted by Miami-Dade County, according to the Miami Herald.