Blue Road and Ilia Development Group plan to start construction on a condo tower with a pickleball roof deck in North Miami Beach by early next year, after city officials approved a new site plan for the 650,384-square-foot condo project Monday.
The North Miami Beach City Commission approved the developers’ request to increase the number of residences within The William, a 25-story development planned at 2040 Northeast 163rd Street, from 344 to 374. The change eliminates 30 planned hotel rooms.
Blue Road and Ilia have already presold 23 percent of the units, their attorney Steve Warnick said.
Designed by Uruguayan architect Carlos Ott, Coral Gables-based Behar Font & Partners and Miami Beach-based designer Urban Robot, the condo building will include 4,500 square feet of retail, 448 parking spaces and two amenity decks. The ninth-floor deck will have a pool, club room, office areas and a gym, and the 25th floor will feature a pickleball court.
The project site is surrounded by one-story strip malls, fast food restaurants, and low-to-mid rise apartments and offices. The development will replace a two-story office building that was completed in 1968. An affiliate of Blue Road and Ilia acquired the 1.1-acre property for $7.5 million in November 2022.
The William will be larger than the 576,500-square-foot mixed-use plans approved by the city back in 2022. It called for a 23-story building with 334 residential units, 30 hotel rooms, 7,300 square feet of retail and 410 parking spaces.
Previous changes to the plans added the parking level and rooftop amenity deck, scaled back the retail and increased the number of residential units from 334 to 344, changes approved administratively.
Blue Road and Ilia Development Group launched sales for The William in September. Named after William Fulford, a U.S. Coast Guard Captain who founded a settlement in what would be North Miami Beach in the late 19th Century, The William is being marketed already as a 26-story project. Presales prices for its condo units ranged between $380,000 and $1 million at launch.
This won’t be Blue Road’s first project in North Miami Beach. Blue Road and Fortune International Group obtained a $73.3 million loan last summer from Tel Aviv-based Bank Hapoalim to build Nexo Residences at 13899 Biscayne Boulevard.
The projects are in areas upzoned by North Miami Beach officials in the 2010s under the leadership of Mayor George Vallejo prior to his resignation in 2018 when he pleaded guilty to using campaign donations for personal uses.
Other properties approved for high-rise mixed-use development near North Miami Beach’s 163rd Street corridor include Sky Garden Residences, a 341-unit apartment tower at 16300 Northeast 19th Avenue that is tied up in litigation between developer Celal Ozkan and lender Safe Harbor Equity.
Meanwhile, a three-acre site at 16385 West Dixie Highway, where Laurenzo’s Italian Market once operated, is zoned for a 1,217-unit mega development. As of last year, the property was listed on the market for $26 million.