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Apr 08 No Comments

Silicon Valley Heads To Wynwood’s Office Market

Author: Admin

Categories: Commercial News,Leasing,Offices,Trends,Wynwood

Wynwood has changed quickly from the early 2000s, when it was home to a number of galleries that came alive the second Saturday of the month, to an established tourist destination with an active nightlife scene. Today, it has residents and short-term rentals, restaurants, breweries and bars, and hotels on the way.

Now, it’s also emerging as a new office submarket in Miami, even amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Wynwood is seeing a number of new office projects, as major developers target the artsy district, aiming to add hundreds of thousands of square feet of office space. Big name tenants have signed leases, like Spotify, Live Nation and WeWork. Apple Music, Google, Dentsu and other creative marketing agencies have also been looking in the market, brokers and developers say.

The office vacancy rate in Wynwood is expected to spike this year, when most, if not all of the office space is delivered. Already, there is 180,000 square feet of new space in the market, with another 350,000 square feet under construction. That doesn’t include 500,000 square feet more office space in the pipeline, according to Albert Garcia, chairman of the Wynwood Business Improvement District.

Garcia and others expect that the new supply will get absorbed.

“We’ve seen development happen evenly. We’re very pleased with how the market has reacted to zoning guidelines,” he said. “You have to remember, prior to that there was zero Class A office in the neighborhood. Over the next six to 24 months, you’re going to see new office leases moving within the market from Brickell, Doral, Coral Gables.”

Covid-19’s effects

And now, with the uncertainty surrounding the Covid-19 outbreak, Garcia and others believe that Wynwood will be well-positioned to attract new office tenants to the neighborhood.

“The good news is that these are all state-of-the-art office environments that will be adaptable and scalable in ways that the new office tenants are going to be looking for, places that are safe, that offer flexibility in workspace,” Garcia said.

Yet, some developers are pulling back, attorney Steve Wernick of Wernick & Co. said. The pandemic will likely cause a correction in the market and slow down office absorption, forcing landlords to adjust their pricing and the types of tenants they’re trying to attract.

“Wynwood is resilient, it always bounces back. We had Zika,” Wernick said. “Businesses that have capital and have long-term growth potential might be able to secure the office space they need that’s advantageous to them.”

Other market sectors

Brokers and developers expect space to also be absorbed in multifamily and other sectors of the market. Besides Related and East End, the Kushner Companies with Block Capital Group, as well as homebuilding giant Lennar Corp. have multifamily-anchored mixed-use projects in the works.

“At the end of the day, it’s a real neighborhood,” said Gaston Miculitzki of BM2 Realty, a Wynwood-based brokerage.

It’s unclear yet how deep the impact of coronavirus will be. Brokers Tony Arellano and Devlin Marinoff of Dwntwn Realty Advisors said the pandemic will eventually result in opportunities for tenants – and for investors.

“Now if you’re buying something, you’re buying it at a good value,” Arellano said. “All of the foam of the market got taken off.”

Grocery stores and major pharmacy chains are also eyeing the market, according to commercial broker Tere Blanca.

Office space supply

Sterling Bay, a Chicago developer that has built and leases space to McDonald’s Uber, Glassdoor and Twitter, officially entered the Wynwood market in 2018. Sterling Bay is building 545 Wyn, a 10-story, 325,000-square-foot Class A office building that will be completed later this year. It’s the biggest office project under construction in Wynwood.

Michael Lirtzman, director of leasing, said the developer’s aim is for tenants to move in by the end of the year. At 545 Wyn, the developer has secured Gensler, a major design and architecture firm, which signed a lease for 13,000 square feet.

Gross rents are in the high $50s and $60s per square foot for new construction in Wynwood, brokers and developers said.

Lirtzman said the push into a neighborhood like Wynwood is typical for Sterling Bay. “We tend not to go for the traditional downtown high-rise markets. We’ve gone into neighborhoods with a little more live, work, play,” he said.

Wynwood, previously home to a number of industrial warehouses, is similar to Chicago’s Fulton Market district, near the west side of Chicago, where Sterling Bay is looking to sell the McDonald’s global headquarters building, Lirtzman added.

Amenities in Wynwood are comparable to those offered by residents of new apartment towers in downtown Miami, Edgewater and the Arts & Entertainment District.

Once completed, 545 Wyn will include a 4,700-square-foot fitness center with spinning and yoga, a 17,000-square-foot terrace on the fifth floor with a full kitchen and bar, and 26,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space for three large food and beverage and entertainment tenants.

The companies the developer is courting “want their people to be comfortable in the building,” Lirtzman said. “They’re using their real estate as a recruitment tool.”

More projects completed and planned

When Sterling Bay went under contract on the Wynwood land more than two years ago, the developer had no competition.

But now, new office projects are popping up throughout Wynwood. 545 Wyn is being built on the west side, fronting I-95, where larger office projects were or are planned. The Oasis in Wynwood, a mixed-use adaptive reuse project under construction at 2335 North Miami Avenue is east of that, on the northeast corner of the neighborhood.

In January, New York-based R&B Group broke ground on the Gateway at Wynwood, a 460,000-square-foot mixed-use building on the northern outskirts of Wynwood, at 2916 North Miami Avenue. The project will have about 195,000 square feet of office space, plus retail, a rooftop terrace and a garage.

About a year ago, CIM Group closed on a $71.2 million construction loan for a 12-story Wynwood Square mixed-use development at 2201 North Miami Avenue. The project, with 241 apartments and about 27,000 square feet of retail, will have about 60,000 square feet of Class A office. One Real Estate Investment is a co-developer of the project.

The Annex, a 52,000-square-foot office building that Related Group and East End Capital completed last year next to their Wynwood 25 apartment building, is west of Second Avenue, Wynwood’s “cultural spine,” said Garcia, of the Wynwood BID. Tenants there include Live Nation Entertainment, which took nearly 8,000 square feet.

Jonathan Yormak, founder and managing principal of East End Capital, said full service asking rents are about $57 per square foot at the Annex.

Directly across the street is Cube Wynwd, an eight-story, 86,000-square-foot Class A building developed by RedSky Capital and equity partner JZ Capital Partners. Regus was the first tenant to sign and open, taking 21,000 square feet at the Class A building.

In addition to tenants relocating from downtown Miami and Brickell, developers and brokers said there are a number of new-to-market companies looking to plant their flag in Wynwood.

WeWork opened last year at the Wynwood Garage, taking 30,000 square feet at 301 Northwest 26th Street, marking the largest office lease in the neighborhood, according to broker George Pino, president of State Street Realty. The office market in Wynwood is just now in its infancy, he said.

Wooing tenants

Some of the largest TAMI (technology, advertising, media and information) tenants have their eyes on Wynwood – but not necessarily on specific buildings.

Take Spotify. The music streaming company toured 545 Wyn and other projects in the neighborhood before deciding to take all of the 20,000 square feet of office space at the Oasis in Wynwood.

“What’s important about the Spotify lease is Spotify had identified Wynwood. It wasn’t like they were between the Oasis in Wynwood and two buildings in Brickell and Coconut Grove,” said David Weitz, co-founder of Carpe Real Estate Partners, developer of the Oasis.

Not every company is choosing to be in Wynwood, though. Yext, a New York City-based brand management technology firm, looked at Wynwood before deciding to open its Miami office at 600 Brickell Avenue, near Brickell City Centre, sources said.

Erik Rutter, co-founder of Carpe Real Estate Partners, said Spotify wanted to create a campus for its employees where the company could create programming. A rendering of the space shows a stage in front of the Spotify logo.

As a gateway to Latin America, Miami has long attracted a number of creative marketing agencies, but the tech scene has been much smaller, beginning with the LAB Miami, the first co-working space and first coding academy, Wyncode.

Now, that’s changing.

“Wynwood is very culture rich. A lot of submarkets in Miami, from an office market perspective, [prospective tenants] don’t feel like there’s a lot of character,” Weitz said. “I think the low-story pedestrian-oriented nature in Wynwood really makes it attractive. It has culture. It has character. It’s walkable.”

Source: The Real Deal

Mar 24 No Comments

Vacant Property In Miami’s Wynwood Faces Foreclosure

Author: Admin

Categories: Commercial News,Wynwood

A vacant site in Miami’s Wynwood neighborhood is the target of a $2 million foreclosure lawsuit.

City First Mortgage Corp. filed the foreclosure lawsuit against 5058 NW 26 ST LLC. No individuals were named in the complaint. The lender aims to seize the 10,400-square-foot site at 58 and 60 N.W. 26th St. It’s on the eastern edge of Wynwood, just west of North Miami Avenue, and directly south of where the Bradley Wynwood apartments are under construction.

The company bought the property for $3.2 million in 2019 and obtained a $2 million mortgage from the lender, with a maturity date of Jan. 1, 2020, and a 9.75% interest rate. In 2018, it sold for $2.3 million, and in 2015 it traded for $649,5000 – another example of the explosive growth in property values in Wynwood.

Source: SFBJ

Feb 27 No Comments

Co-Living, Senior Housing Can Produce Higher Returns: ULI Panelists

Author: Admin

Categories: Commercial News,Development,Multifamily,Trends,Wynwood

Developers are counting on demand to be strong for co-living apartments in Wynwood, offering lower rents, shared common areas and amenities geared to promote face-to-face interactions among residents.

“There is a real vibe in these buildings,” said Swiss real estate developer Ralph Winter, whose company, W5 Group, is developing a Wynwood co-living project with the Related Group. “It is very comparable to student housing except here you have people coming from all over the world [as roommates]. They really like it.”

Winter joined Alberto Milo Jr., president of Related’s affordable housing division, and Greg West, CEO of ZOM Living, for a panel discussion on the latest trends in multifamily development at the Urban Land Institute’s Housing Opportunity Conference on Monday. Ron Terwilliger, chairman of Terwilliger Pappas Multifamily Properties, was the moderator.

Winter said his project with Related, called w28 and designed by Arquitectonica, will likely take two-and-a-half years to complete. As the lead equity partner, W5 Group is providing 80 percent of the capital to build w28. The project will have 200 co-living apartments and 3,600 square feet of ground-floor retail. The development is set to rise at 33, 45, and 51 Northwest 28th Street, three parcels Related bought for $6.5 million in June.

Apartments at w28 will be fully-furnished, have shared common areas and include streaming services such as Netflix — features that appeal to millennials, Winter said. He said kitchens are designed to encourage interactions between an apartment’s tenants, such as drinking beer on a dining counter.

“This is more of a prime concept to bring people together,” Winter said. “We have seen in our research that the loneliness factor for a 25-year-old is much higher than for a 65-year-old. [Because of smartphones] they are not really connected in a face-to-face manner. That is what we try to do in these buildings.”

Winter said a co-living tenant can expect to pay 15 percent less than the average monthly rent for a studio. However, a room in a co-living apartment averages 140 square feet, he noted. Winter explained co-living apartments are attractive to young professionals who may not stay rooted in one city or often travel for long periods of time for their jobs.

“We have guys from Google and Apple who could easily pay $3,000 a month for an apartment,” Winter said. “You are paying to be part of a membership, an exclusive circle….They say, ‘Oh that is a cool place, and I want to be a part of it.”’

On the flip side of the demographic spectrum, demand for luxury apartment buildings geared to senior citizens is booming, according to ZOM Living’s West. His company is developing the Watermark at Merrick Park in Coral Gables and the Watermark at West Palm Beach, two mid-rise multifamily projects strictly for people near retirement age.

West said senior housing monthly rents can produce about an 8 percent yield compared to the typical 6 percent yield of regular apartment buildings.

“The exit [rate of return is] higher than conventional multifamily,” he said. “We’d sell apartments in the 4 [percent range]. In senior housing, you will sell at 6 [percent].”

However, multifamily owners have to employ more people to provide property management services. And achieving full occupancy takes longer in senior living buildings, West said.

The three-day ULI conference featured two days of panels on Monday and Tuesday. The event concludes Wednesday with site tours of various projects in Miami-Dade, including Related’s Liberty Square redevelopment project, the Link at Douglas transit-oriented development by The Adler Group and 13th Floor Investments, and condo buildings that allow short-term rentals.

Source: The Real Deal

Feb 04 No Comments

The Big-Money Development Push Is On In Wynwood, Allapattah

Author: Admin

Categories: Allapattah,Commercial News,Development,Wynwood

Related Group recently completed two projects in Wynwood and has more in the works, Vice President Jon Paul Perez told Bisnow this week. In Allapattah, it recently opened a gallery and is on the lookout for other opportunities.

“It’s gotten to that point where the buying and trading of land without developing … that ship has sailed,” Perez said. “If you’re buying land there now, you’re assuming you’re going to have to develop.”

Sterling Bay Director of Leasing Michael Lirtzman had a similar assessment. The Chicago development giant closed on a site for $18.9M in December 2018, at 545 Northwest 26th St., where it is building a 10-story, 300K SF office building called 525wyn.

“We got in at a pretty good number,” Lirtzman said. “The pricing was a little more restrained. Now it’s starting to push.”

Sophisticated national developers have “brought some discipline to the pricing,” he said, but he predicted values would stay high as the neighborhood hits maturity.

“Wynwood is in the mode of building now,” said Avison Young principal John Crotty, with the days of flipping mostly gone and big residential developers going vertical.

Allapattah, however, still has pockets of opportunity, he said. “Other than by the [Miami] River and by [Jackson Memorial] Hospital, there’s not much development.”

Related Group and partner East End Capital completed Wynwood 25 in July. Its 289 apartments are now 85% leased at $3.10 per SF, Perez said, and its 35K SF of retail is 45% leased. Another project, the Bradley, which Related developed as apartments, was instead leased entirely to Domio to be operated as short-term rentals.

Perez said that Related benefited by being the first mover, willing to take a risk.

“The bet that we were making was that people wanted to live in Wynwood, right?” he said. “I could never have told you, ‘Hey, I’m going to sign a lease for all the apartments to one operator,’ because I think at that time these types of companies did not exist.”

When Domio came around, “we were the only option for someone that wanted one of those companies to be able to be in the neighborhood,” he added. Domio reportedly fought off competition from rival short-term rental operators to sign the building.

The largest development deal in the area last year was a 1.6-acre site at the corner of Northwest 25th Street and Second Avenue, which buyer Property Markets Group and Greybrook Realty Partners paid $46M to acquire and redevelop from its existing use as a gallery into a six-story resident complex with 222 units, Crotty said.

Crotty said PMG spun out the bottom-floor retail to Tricera Capital, which should be able to garner rents around $80 per SF.

“That’s Main and Main,” said Crotty, a former NBA player who also serves as the Miami Heat’s TV analyst. “That’s top-of-the-market pricing.”

Blocks off the main drag, Wynwood rents are about $50 per SF, he said.

Office leasing at the Wynwood Annex has gone a little slowly, Perez said, but Live Nation leased a floor and he said he is in talks with potential tenants that are similar in size and credit to the events company.

“So definitely by the end of 2022, our buildings should be close, if not 100% occupied,” Perez said.

Lirtzman compared Wynwood to the Fulton Market area of Chicago, which was “where young people went to hang out. There was no office, but a vibrancy in the neighborhood.”

Sterling Bay decided to build office projects there with large floor plates and top-line amenities geared for creative tenants. It is now building its seventh Fulton Market building in a six- or seven-block radius.

Sterling Bay’s Wynwood project, which recently topped off, will include a fitness center, an indoor/outdoor bar and 440 parking spaces. Its first tenant is architecture giant Gensler, and Lirtzman said a letter of intent has been signed for a consulting firm to take 8K SF.

Goldman Properties opened the 30K SF Wynwood Garage in 2018, and a boutique office building, the eight-story, 86K SF Cube Wynwd, opened last year. Another big project, The Gateway at Wynwood, a 460K SF Class-A office building, broke ground last week.

The same forces that shaped Wynwood have affected the working-class neighborhood of Allapattah, just to the west. Whereas Wynwood had largely been made up of industrial warehouses, Allapattah now buzzes with working-class businesses. But real estate pros have been hyping it as the next hot neighborhood.

Developer Robert Wennett has proposed a mixed-use development by Danish “starchitect” Bjarke Ingels. Neology Life Development Group head Lissette Calderon in October broke ground on No. 17 Residences Allapattah, a 14-story, 192-unit apartment at 1569 Northwest 17th Ave.

“If you go have lunch on a Wednesday, it’s cops, it’s firemen, there’s people that are working nurses, doctors,” Perez said. “Allapattah probably started selling at $20 a foot, and now you have property trading at 130 bucks a foot.

“We’re not in that game of finding land and hoping for the value to rise and then flipping. So we say, ‘OK, at this price, does it make sense where I could build apartments, office, whatever it may be, at this land basis?'” he continued. “We’re looking for sites that are large enough that we can do substantial projects — 300 or so apartments there — and we haven’t found one yet that we are moving forward on.”

Calderon said in an email that construction on No. 17 Residences Allapattah has reached the fifth floor and is expected to be completed in spring 2021. She highlighted its amenities, including smart technology for package receiving, a digital concierge, a gym with virtual fitness and a “bark park” where dogs can play.

She said Neology Life is planning to break ground on another mixed-use project near No. 17, with 323 units, ground-floor retail and office space. It would begin construction after No. 17 opens in late spring 2021.

Crotty said that besides the aforementioned projects, plus a few others in the pipeline — the 555 River House proposed by Avra Jain and a yet-to-be-developed parcel he sold to billionaire developer Moishe Mana for $8.5M — Allapattah “has yet to fill in and grow,” he said.

Florida’s Department of Transportation is exploring the possibility of building a new highway exit off Interstate 95 at Northwest 29th Street.

“That would be a game changer,” Crotty said.

Source: Bisnow

Jan 20 No Comments

Developer Moishe Mana To Break Ground On First Wynwood Project

Author: Admin

Categories: Commercial News,Development,Offices,Wynwood

Come the fall, developer and entrepreneur Moishe Mana will break ground on his first project in Wynwood. And more will soon follow, he said.

Mana is ready to proceed with a three-story, 35,410-square-foot building at 2900 NW Fifth Ave. that will house the Puerto Rican Chamber of Commerce and some additional offices for Miami-Dade County, according to Berenblum Busch Architects.

The architectural firm will submit the final design and construction documents by late January for the building and expects to have permits in hand by August, said Gustavo Berenblum, the firm’s founding principal.

Construction is slated to begin in September. The chamber, currently at 3550 Biscayne Blvd., is expected to relocate to the new digs by November 2021.

The three-story building will include a ground floor café, retail and meeting spaces, and 6,800 square feet of ground-floor parking, according to Gustavo Berenblum, the firm’s founding principal. The second floor will host offices for the chamber and county. The third floor will have additional offices as well as a 6,800-square-foot terrace facing south toward 29th Street.

Originally designed as a four-story building, the project was downsized at the request of the developer and county to meet the construction budget of $8.4 million. The four-story design would have cost $11 million, Berenblum said.

As part of an agreement between Mana and Miami-Dade County, the county will pay about $2 million from a bond; Mana will pay the rest.

The development comes as the neighborhood’s office market expands. The prior year saw the largest amount of Class A and Class B office space development since 2009, and Wynwood is receiving much of that new square footage.

Mana owns 40 mostly contiguous acres in Wynwood. His plan for the neighborhood includes a trade center occupying 8.5 acres from west of Northwest Fifth Avenue to Interstate 95.

The Israeli-born developer is also focused on planning and designing the front lot of a 4.5-acre development with buildings scaling two-to-three stories between Northwest 23rd St. up to Northwest 22nd St. and Northwest 2nd Ave.

“It will add another dimension to Wynwood,” Mana said.

He expects to complete the design in about two months.

The Wynwood neighborhood was one of the first areas settled by Puerto Rican immigrants who moved to Miami in the 1950s.

“It’s important to have the chamber in Wynwood because we don’t want to lose this part of the community,” Mana said. “We want to keep the culture.”

Said Berenblum Busch Architects Principle Claudia Busch, “It’s an opportunity for the Puerto Rican community to have a place of its own. You already have many Puerto Rican institutions that are there contributing to the health of the local economy there.”

Mana’s company also plans to provide financial support for chamber events, he said. To date, it has given $60,000, according to the chamber.

“We plan to initiate an arts program to attract artists from Puerto Rico and local artists for cultural events,” said Luis De Rosa, the president of the Puerto Rican Chamber of Commerce. “We also plan to provide aid to small businesses.”

Mana started searching for a Wynwood location for the chamber in 2011, he said, and signed an agreement with the county in 2015. Previously, the group planned to build at Northwest Second Ave. and 21st Street but abandoned that location due to environmental issues with the property, Busch said.

Source: Miami Herald

Jan 12 No Comments

Pop-up Stores Are Gaining Popularity And Are Here To Stay, Experts Say. Here’s Why.

Author: Admin

Categories: Commercial News,Miami Beach,Retail,Trends,Wynwood

For those who thought the pop-up trend was coming to a close, guess again. Pop-up stores are proliferating in cities across the country, including Miami.

The most popular local pop-up hubs: the Design District, Lincoln Road and Wynwood.

That news comes from a December report Pop-up-a-Palooza! published by Cushman & Wakefield in December. The report studied digital brands that opened for the first time in a bricks-and-mortar space during Halloween, the busiest time of year for pop-ups. In 2019, about 2,500 temporary Halloween stores opened across the country — an 80% increase from 10 years ago, when 1,400 stores opened.

Miami was one of 37 cities listed as a stronghold of activities. New York, Las Vegas and Los Angeles were also on the list.

Source: Miami Herald

Jan 08 No Comments

Multi-Use Redevelopment Of Wynwood Industrial Sites OK’d

Author: Admin

Categories: Commercial News,Multifamily,Offices,Retail,Wynwood

A set of interconnected buildings is designed to bring a mix of residential, retail and office uses to a block in Wynwood, along with major murals and other art treatments and a large courtyard.

With a current title of Dorsey, the major mixed-use project is proposed by developer Weck 29th LLC for land at 2562/268/286 NW 29th St. and 2801 NW Third Ave.

The City of Miami’s Urban Development Review Board voted unanimously to recommend approval.

The venture is being touted as “a true live, work, and play environment.”

Designed by architectural firm Arquitectonica, Dorsey is to rise to 12 stories and include a building at eight stories, surrounding a landscaped courtyard for pedestrian mobility and activity.

The entire development will amount to 604,110 square feet, be home to 306 residences, 35,858 square feet of commercial-retail uses, 58,760 square feet of offices, and have parking levels to hold about 521 vehicles.

The site plan shows projected open space amounting to 16,293 square feet.

The property currently consists of industrial structures and surface parking, according to a letter to the city from Iris Escarra, an attorney representing Weck 29th LLC.

The site includes two adjoining properties with different zoning classifications, along with a special Neighborhood Revitalization District, or NRD-1 overlay, and a land designation of general commercial.

Approximately 32,831 square feet or .75-acre is zoned T5-0, and 56,030 square feet or 1.29 acres is in the T6-8-0 zoned area.

Ms. Escarra said the property fronts Northwest 28th Street to the south and Northwest 29th Street to the north, comprising the property’s principal frontages. Northwest Third Avenue abuts the property to the west, and also serves as a principal frontage.

“The proposed project is an infill project adjacent to two highly traversed streets, NW 29th Street and NW 3rd Avenue,” she wrote. “The Property is located within the Wynwood neighborhood, which has seen a rapid growth over the last few years as it transforms from an industrial neighborhood to an arts and culture destination. The Project seeks to redevelop the industrial structures and provide Residential, Office, and Commercial Uses throughout the Property.”

Discussing details of the project with the review board at its December meeting was attorney Brian A. Dombrowski, also representing the developer, who introduced architect Raymond Fort.

The review board’s liaison, city planner Joseph Eisenberg, gave a background report on the project and noted that the NRD-1 gave the body broader review authority.

This project was also reviewed by the Wynwood Development Review Committee, which granted conditional approval Nov. 12, including asking the applicant to reconsider the proposed artwork screening on the northern garage levels, Mr. Eisenberg said.

Mr. Dombrowski said the developer is excited to bring this mixed-use project to a former industrial site in Wynwood with three frontages.

“We have a large courtyard,” he said, “retail uses on the ground floor, and a large pedestrian crosswalk … it fits the work-live-play vision, and there will be a lot of art opportunities.”

Mr. Fort showed site plans and project renderings, noting the design took into account promoting walkability in the neighborhood.

The architecture also uses rectangular cubic forms and alternating colors to help break up the façade, he said.

There’s not much shade in Wynwood, said Mr. Fort, so the site plan calls for bringing some shade trees in with a landscaping plan that includes palms and evergreens.

Board member Ligia Ines Labrada said the presentation was nicely done and she commended the developer’s team for providing access and cross sections with plenty of retail frontages, which she said will create a phenomenal urban experience.

“I have nothing but compliments for the project,” she said.

Board member Robert Behar said, “I also like the project. You’ve done a very nice job with it.”

Board member Ignacio Permuy was also a fan, commending the “exceptional” design.

“Terrific job,” was the assessment of board member Willy Bermello.

“I’ll vote for it. I really like how you resolved every aspect … I like the massing and articulation, particularly on the ground floor … I don’t have any concerns or objections,” said Mr. Bermello.

But board member Neil Hall was critical of the project. By bringing residential into Wynwood in this fashion, he said, “you destroy the brand.” It goes against the years of work to develop this neighborhood as a special area for “creativity and funkiness,” Mr. Hall said.

“The building you created looks more like it’s coming out of New York – I don’t see a Miami theme …,” Mr. Hall said. “The same thing happened in Midtown. We put up 30-story buildings and destroyed the feeling of Midtown.”

Board member Fidel Perez differed from Mr. Hall.

“You did an excellent job breaking up the uses,” Mr. Perez said. “This project is really well designed.”

Source: Miami Today

Dec 27 No Comments

Does Wynwood Really Need More Office And Retal Space? This Developer Thinks So.

Author: Admin

Categories: Commercial News,Development,Offices,Retail,Wynwood

Foot traffic is booming on Wynwood’s busy Northwest 24th Street. Now, developers are eyeing the Northwest 28th Street corridor as the next neighborhood hot spot.

The Wynwood-based development firm Fortis Design + Build told the Miami Herald it has two projects planned for the strip: a 15,000-square-foot office/retail center and a 50,000-square-foot commercial space whose use has not yet been finalized.

“We feel that 28th Street is the next 24th Street. That’s why we are so interested in this area,” said David Polinsky, Ph.D. and partner of Fortis Design + Build. “It’ll look like a complete neighborhood within three years.”

The smaller, two-story building, at 2734 NW First Ave., is expected to open in 2020 and cost under $6 million. It will offer 5,000 square feet of ground floor retail space, 5,000 square feet of office space on the second floor and 5,000 square feet of entertainment or amenity space on the roof top. Each floor will have 22-foot ceilings should a tenant want to expand and add a mezzanine.

Jason Chandler, chair of Florida International University’s architecture department, is designing the exterior and interiors. The City of Miami hired ArquitectonicaGEO to design a one-way road and pedestrian-friendly street adjacent to the project.

“You get a Lincoln Road-style experience but in Wynwood,” Polinsky said.

Fortis has submitted for permits, said Polinsky, and should break ground by late January. The building may have a single office tenant and three retail tenants or a single tenant that leases the entire building. “We’ll make our decision on who the tenant or tenants will be once we break ground,” Polinsky said.

The larger, 8-story building at 82 NW 28th St. is still in the design phase, said Polinsky. Groundbreaking is scheduled for 2021.

Wynwood has experienced a boom in office space since 2018, part of Miami’s overall office construction boom that is the largest since 2009.

A growing customer base is driving more developers to Wynwood, Jonathan Rosen, senior associate at JLL, said.

“The key demand is the customer base from tourists and new residents.”

And it’s not over.

“If you compare Wynwood to other submarkets like Brickell,” Rosen said, “Wynwood still has room to grow.”

Source: Miami Herald

Dec 06 No Comments

Miami May Be Closer To Banning Special Area Plans

Author: Admin

Categories: Allapattah,Commercial News,Development,Neighborhoods,Wynwood

In Miami, property owners who control more than 9 acres of land can apply for a wide array of zoning changes. They’re called Special Area Plans, or SAPs, and the legislation has allowed for massive, planned projects like Brickell City Centre, River Landing Shops & Residences, the redevelopment of the Miami Design District, and the expansion of the Miami Jewish Home. It has also allowed for future mega-projects like the Magic City Innovation District in Little Haiti, Miami Produce Center in Allapattah, and Mana Wynwood.

On Jan. 15, the city of Miami’s Planning, Zoning and Appeals Board will discuss proposed legislation that could do away with SAPs altogether.

The board voted Wednesday to discuss a rule at its Jan. 15 meeting that would recommend that the city remove SAPs from the Miami 21 zoning code. In the 8 to 1 vote, board member Chris Collins was the lone dissenter.

The ultimate decision on whether to keep SAPs rests with the Miami City Commission. But even if the resolution isn’t approved, board members hope that it will tell elected leaders that SAPs are not beneficial to Miami’s existing neighborhoods and residents.

“I don’t want to send them a weak message,” said the resolution’s proposer, board member Alex Dominguez. “Either get rid of the damn thing … or let us move on.”

Several residents and community activists said SAPs are threatening neighborhoods, clogging roads with additional traffic, and speeding up gentrification. At the very least, community activists want a moratorium on future SAPs until regulations are put in place that govern development and require that affordable housing be offered in exchange for zoning.

“When I sell my home, I will have to leave because I will not be able to afford to live here,” said Jordan Levin, who lives in a house in Buena Vista East that she bought 20 years ago. “Please put a moratorium on these things. They’re the Godzillas of development. Development should not just be for the developers. Development should be for the city.”

Sue Trone, the city’s chief of community planning, argued that SAPs can help parts of Miami move away from the “segregated” uses advocated in the city’s 1959 comprehensive plan into a more mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly environment. And while reforms are needed, Trone argued that SAPs can “do a lot of good for the city.” Land use attorney Neisen Kasdin also begged the board not to “throw the baby out with the bath water” and to instead pursue reforms.

Dominguez, though, said it was best if the city rid itself of SAPs as soon as possible.

“Time is our biggest enemy. The more time we spend kicking things down the road and having meetings, the more developers are going to develop [SAPs] and we’ll have more traffic and we’ll see more people getting displaced,” he said.

Board member Melody Torrens said stopping future SAPs is “starting to make a lot of sense.” Still, she said the commission might not accept the idea, and while reforms are being debated, developers will continue to push SAPs. “If we’re not going to stop them completely, then we definitely need a moratorium while we go through [the legislation],” Torrens said.

Board chairman Charles Garavaglia agreed with Dominguez that passing a rule ending SAPs would make a stronger impact with politicians.

“I just think we should stop SAPs and send that message,” Garavaglia said, “and, ultimately, the commission will do what they want.”

Source: The Real Deal

Oct 31 No Comments

A Wynwood Tri-Rail Station? Brightline’s Aventura Station Gives Idea A Second Wind

Author: Admin

Categories: Commercial News,Development,Retail,Wynwood

After Miami-Dade’s decision to build a new Brightline express train station in Aventura, Wynwood business owners and some local transit officials have begun circulating a new proposal for a long-discussed Tri-Rail station in the fast-blooming neighborhood.

Members of the Wynwood Business Improvement District, led by local property owner Bill Rammos, say the station would relieve increasing traffic congestion and offer an additional transit option as the once blighted area continues to morph into a shopping and tourist magnet.

“In the last five years, the 27th Street artery between Wynwood and Edgewater has become a major artery, especially for micromobility, like scooters and bikes,” Rammos said. “And not just for local residents that work here, but also for a lot of tourists.

“So It’s now becoming clearer to me that it would be a great location for a train station.”

A new set of drawings commissioned by Rammos would see the trains landing on Florida East Coast-owned tracks at a station between Northwest 25th and 27th streets. Rammos is among the largest property owners along that site.

Currently, public transit options to Wynwood are limited to buses and trolleys. Parking on a Saturday night costs as much as $4.73 an hour.

Some Wynwood BID members and other civic leaders argue the county’s decision to finance the Aventura Brightline station for $76 million raises the question of whether the county would join any effort to expand Tri-Rail services along Coastal Link.

A station in Wynwood, Midtown, Edgewater or the Design District has been proposed for years. It received a new push last year as a “demonstration station” project for the area was floated. However, that idea has been delayed.

At a Miami Transportation Planning Organization meeting last week, officials said they’d be willing to forego the demonstration project entirely in favor of a permanent station.

The proposal remains preliminary, said Steven Abrams, director of the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority, the organization that runs Tri-Rail. Abrams said a funding scheme has been proposed; the sources, which include the Florida Department of Transportation, Miami-Dade County, the city of Miami, and the Miami Parking Authority — are still meeting to come up with a final plan of action.

Alice Bravo, Miami-Dade County’s transit director, said Tri-Rail must nail down further details about the station.

“Tri-Rail has the lead on this,” she said in a phone interview.

And it would be Florida East Coast Railway — the Brightline sister company that operates the freight tracks along which Tri-Rail would run — that would have final say over the project. The deal between Virgin and Tri-Rail that will eventually get the latter into MiamiCentral also allows for another station somewhere between 71st Street and downtown, on two conditions: that the other station not obstruct Virgin trains and that Tri-Rail pays for any improvements needed to minimize obstruction.

An FEC representative could not immediately be reached by phone.

Rammos’ Wynwood allies include Carlos Rosso of Related Group, which recently completed the Wywnood 25 luxury apartment complex, and has another development, Wynwood 26, nearing completion.

“All the pedestrian traffic is coming to Wynwood,” Rosso said. “So it makes more sense.”

They also include Gary Nader, an art dealer who owns a gallery near the proposed station.

“It would be a lot of acres around that area,” he said. “We need to work together to do a nice project. It’s going to be very interesting.”

Source: Miami Herald

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Silicon Valley Heads To Wynwood’s Office Market

Covid-19’s effects

“The good news is that these are all state-of-the-art office environments that will be adaptable and scalable in ways that the new office tenants are going to be looking for, places that are safe, that offer flexibility in workspace,” Garcia said.

“Wynwood is resilient, it always bounces back. We had Zika,” Wernick said. “Businesses that have capital and have long-term growth potential might be able to secure the office space they need that’s advantageous to them.”

Other market sectors

“At the end of the day, it’s a real neighborhood,” said Gaston Miculitzki of BM2 Realty, a Wynwood-based brokerage.

“Now if you’re buying something, you’re buying it at a good value,” Arellano said. “All of the foam of the market got taken off.”

Office space supply

More projects completed and planned

Wooing tenants

“What’s important about the Spotify lease is Spotify had identified Wynwood. It wasn’t like they were between the Oasis in Wynwood and two buildings in Brickell and Coconut Grove,” said David Weitz, co-founder of Carpe Real Estate Partners, developer of the Oasis.

Vacant Property In Miami’s Wynwood Faces Foreclosure

Developer Moishe Mana To Break Ground On First Wynwood Project

Pop-up Stores Are Gaining Popularity And Are Here To Stay, Experts Say. Here’s Why.

Multi-Use Redevelopment Of Wynwood Industrial Sites OK’d

“We have a large courtyard,” he said, “retail uses on the ground floor, and a large pedestrian crosswalk … it fits the work-live-play vision, and there will be a lot of art opportunities.”

“I have nothing but compliments for the project,” she said.

Board member Robert Behar said, “I also like the project. You’ve done a very nice job with it.”

“Terrific job,” was the assessment of board member Willy Bermello.

“I’ll vote for it. I really like how you resolved every aspect … I like the massing and articulation, particularly on the ground floor … I don’t have any concerns or objections,” said Mr. Bermello.

But board member Neil Hall was critical of the project. By bringing residential into Wynwood in this fashion, he said, “you destroy the brand.” It goes against the years of work to develop this neighborhood as a special area for “creativity and funkiness,” Mr. Hall said.

“The building you created looks more like it’s coming out of New York – I don’t see a Miami theme …,” Mr. Hall said. “The same thing happened in Midtown. We put up 30-story buildings and destroyed the feeling of Midtown.”

“You did an excellent job breaking up the uses,” Mr. Perez said. “This project is really well designed.”

Does Wynwood Really Need More Office And Retal Space? This Developer Thinks So.

“We feel that 28th Street is the next 24th Street. That’s why we are so interested in this area,” said David Polinsky, Ph.D. and partner of Fortis Design + Build. “It’ll look like a complete neighborhood within three years.”

“You get a Lincoln Road-style experience but in Wynwood,” Polinsky said.

“The key demand is the customer base from tourists and new residents.”

“If you compare Wynwood to other submarkets like Brickell,” Rosen said, “Wynwood still has room to grow.”

Miami May Be Closer To Banning Special Area Plans

“I don’t want to send them a weak message,” said the resolution’s proposer, board member Alex Dominguez. “Either get rid of the damn thing … or let us move on.”

“Time is our biggest enemy. The more time we spend kicking things down the road and having meetings, the more developers are going to develop [SAPs] and we’ll have more traffic and we’ll see more people getting displaced,” he said.

“I just think we should stop SAPs and send that message,” Garavaglia said, “and, ultimately, the commission will do what they want.”

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