Bazbaz Development’s plan for a 48-story tower in Wynwood, the area’s tallest ever planned building, struck out in front of a Miami review board.
The Wynwood Design Review Committee voted against the proposal after a roughly two-hour discussion this week. The committee’s vote isn’t final but merely a recommendation.
Sonny Bazbaz’s eponymously named firm wants to build the 544-unit apartment building on a 1.5-acre assemblage at 2110, 2118 and 2134 North Miami Avenue, as well as 2101, 2129 and 2135 Northwest Miami Court in Miami.
The Live Local Act, a state legislation approved last year and tweaked this year, allows developers wiggle room on site and neighborhood zoning restrictions as long as at least 40 percent of the units are designated as affordable or workforce housing for tenants earning no more than 120 percent of the area median income. These apartments have to stay at below-market rents for at least 30 years.
Bazbaz’s project marks the first Live Local Act proposal for Wynwood to go in front of the design review committee for a vote. Wynwood buildings are limited to 12 stories, a threshold reached after a yearslong effort to hammer out the neighborhood’s zoning code in a way that preserves the former warehouse district’s character.
But Bazbaz’s project isn’t the only Wynwood proposal under the state affordable housing legislation. In total, six Live Local Act projects have been filed for Wynwood, according to city staff members.
That’s why review committee members said during their meeting that their vote on Bazbaz’s project essentially sets a precedent for future proposed Live Local Act projects in Wynwood, and ultimately for the neighborhood’s changing character.
Under Live Local, the committee’s hands are tied on the project’s height and size in general. But members took issue with various aspects of the tower’s design and its scale just on the first few levels, including of the garage podium.
After several committee members commented on the tower’s “efficient” design, committee member Shamim Ahmadzadegan chimed in.
“I want to call it efficient as a euphemism for too simplistic. It’s a box on top of a slender box. We feel like it’s probably overly simplistic. I might use the term unremarkable,” he said at the meeting on Tuesday. “Wynwood is never simplistic and unremarkable.”
Committee member Amanda Hertzler echoed her colleagues on the dais in saying that the tower is “beautiful,” but the design doesn’t fit in Wynwood.
Source: The Real Deal