As Miami struggles to shake off its notorious reputation as the nationwide epicenter of the affordability crisis, development has been primarily restricted to two options: single-family homes or towers.
But perhaps it’s small- to mid-sized projects designed to fit on castoff, difficult-to-develop lots that are the answer.
Developer Laura Weinstein-Berman’s Project Peach –– named for its peach-colored exteriors with yellow framing the windows –– is exactly that kind of development.
The four-story building has three live-work units, all already leased, as well as a floor for a community services group, a ground-floor space for a juice bar, a rooftop terrace and interior courtyard, the Miami Herald reported. It’s at 123 Northwest 14th Street.
The building’s name and signature deep peach color pay homage to Overtown’s Black-owned Cola-Nip Bottling Company, which produced a popular Peach Whip soda until its landmark building was demolished in 2002.
“Even though it’s a small project, it provides a model that is almost nonexistent in the city,” Carie Penabad, who is the project’s architect along with her husband, Adib Cure, told the publication. “If you were able to do this kind of development on many lots, you can densify the city without losing the human scale that people love.”
Weinstein-Berman built the $2.6 million structure on a substandard lot of barely 3,000 square feet — half the size of a typical Miami residential lot — the kind of parcel developers typically write off as unbuildable. To finance the cost, she tapped a $1.3 million loan from the Florida Community Loan Fund, which is backed in part by a Knight Foundation grant, and a $1.3 million forgivable loan from the Miami Omni Community Redevelopment Agency.
Project Peach’s rents are restricted for households earning 50 percent of the area median income.
The project’s biggest obstacle was bureaucratic hurdles, including yearslong work to overcome rigid parking requirements and fire-safety rules, the developer and architects told the publications.
Weinstein-Berman is part of a cohort of developers capitalizing on the demand for housing by the so-called missing middle, or people who earn too much to qualify for affordable housing but not enough for market-rate homes.
The Chraibi brothers’ Miami-based Bluenest Development, founded in 2018, started out with building single-family homes and has expanded into developing townhome communities, primarily in south Miami-Dade County.
Few, however, are seizing on throwaway parcels with proposals for small- to mid-sized projects. In fact, the state’s Live Local Act incentivizes affordable and workforce housing construction by allowing developers to bypass local zoning rules and build much bigger than a site’s zoning permits. Under Live Local, at least 40 percent of apartments have to be for households earning no more than 120 percent of the AMI.
The law has led to a flurry of proposals for towers.
In Riviera Beach, Related Urban, BH Group and Tezral Partners plan a pair of 20-story towers on city-owned land with 418 units under the Live Local Act. Also under Live Local, in Miami’s Wynwood Norte, ABH Developer Group wants to build the 36-story, 293-unit Wyn Park, while in the city’s Overtown, KYU restaurant co-founder Alan Omsky proposes a 55-story, 498-unit tower.
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