Alcazar Plans 211-Unit Apartment Complex in Naranja

A development firm plans a 211-unit multifamily complex with some workforce units in south Miami-Dade County’s Naranja neighborhood.

The project comes amid a massive pipeline of apartments, townhomes and single-family homes in south Miami-Dade. Developers have seized on the area partly due to its vast supply of land that comes at a discount compared to sites elsewhere in the county.

Alcazar Development Group plans the Aura Living apartment complex on a 4.3-acre vacant site on the southeast corner of Southwest 280th Street/Waldin Drive and Southwest 152nd Avenue in unincorporated Miami-Dade, according to the firm’s filings to the county last week.

South Miami-based Alcazar filed a Florida Housing Finance Corporation “zoning verification” last week to the county, which is required for developers to secure funding and incentives for affordable and workforce housing projects. FHFC provides state and federal loans and grants for projects that include below-market rate units.

At Aura Living, at least 12.5 percent of apartments, or 27 units, will be at workforce rents, according to filings to the county. In Miami-Dade, workforce apartments are designated for households earning from 60 percent to 140 percent of the area median income.

Miami-Dade’s annual AMI is $87,200, according to the Florida Housing Finance Corporation.

The project scored administrative site plan approval in 2021. Designed by Anillo. Toledo. Lopez, the complex will consist of a pair of six-story buildings and one four-story building, county records show.

Alcazar paid $3.1 million for the development site in 2015, property records show.

Alcazar –– led by Jose Jorge Figueroa, Justo Fernandez and Guillermo Villar –– is a residential and multifamily private development firm, according to its website.

In 2018, Alcazar completed the three-story, 288-unit The Olivia garden-style apartment complex on the northeast corner of Southwest 284th Street and Southwest 150th Avenue in south Miami-Dade’s Leisure City neighborhood. The complex is near the Aura Living development site.

Alcazar sold The Olivia to an entity tied to Artemis Real Estate Partners and Grand Peaks for $70.5 million in 2021, records show.

Most of Alcazar’s other planned projects are in south Miami-Dade, according to the firm’s website.

Developers eager to start residential projects amid South Florida’s high housing demand have homed in on south Miami-Dade. The area is home to the municipalities of Homestead and Florida City, as well as unincorporated neighborhoods such as Naranja, Leisure City, Princeton and Goulds.

Near Alcazar’s proposed Aura Living, MAS AJP –– led by Alberto Perez and Juan Carlos “J.C.” Mas –– plans the massive 200-plus-acre Mandarin Lakes Traditional Neighborhood Development, a mixed-use project in Naranja with more than 500 residential units and 82,000 square feet of commercial space. Coral Gables-based MAS AJP wants to start with a three-story row house complex with 132 homes and a two-story row house complex with 161 homes on a 27-acre site on the northeast corner of South Dixie Highway and Southwest 280th Street.

Elsewhere in Naranja, Brickell-based Aconcagua plans a seven-story, 239-unit apartment building on the northeast corner of South Dixie Highway and Southwest 264th Avenue/Bauer Drive. Also, Shadi Shomar, Gonzalo De Ramon, brothers Ghassan and Roger Abboud and Royal American Construction plan a pair of eight-story apartment buildings with 278 units, combined, at 23435 Southwest 127th Avenue in Naranja.