Two residential towers are planned near the Douglas Road Metrorail
Two residential towers with a Design District-esque vibe will rise steps away from the Douglas Road Metrorail.
The Shoma Group will develop two apartment buildings, Shoma One, for rent at 3650 Bird Road, replacing the Deel Volvo car dealership, according to Masoud Shojaee, head of the Coral Gables-based development firm. The buildings, totaling 620,000 square feet, will span the entire 2.3-acre corner bordering South Dixie Highway, except for the Goodyear Auto Service, which will remain on site.
Shojaee hired Kendall-based MSA Architects to design the building and Wynwood-based Royal Byckovas for interior designs.
Construction costs are expected to range from $85 million to $95 million.
“There is tremendous growth in this area,” Shojaee said. “We have the Metrorail. We have Merrick Park in walking distance. There is a lot of visibility at this location.”
The buildings will provide 359 units combined, according to Shojaee. One tower will rise 17 stories, and the other will scale 18 floors. The layout ranges from a studio with one bath up to a two-bedroom, two-and-a-half bath unit. An amenity deck, above a parking garage with 530 spaces, will sit at the heart of the project.
Construction is expected to start in late 2020 or during the first quarter of 2021, Shojaee said, and last from 18 to 24 months.
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Amenities include a bowling alley, complimentary snack station and a gated park connecting to the Underline, the proposed 10-mile-long “linear park” for cyclists and pedestrians that would run underneath the Metrorail tracks along Bird Road and South Dixie Highway.
“We are going to have a park adjacent to the Underline and walks leading to the Underline,” said Jose Saumell, principal of MSA Architects. A cafe in the building will also face the park and Underline.
The relationship between the building and Underline is a priority, Saumell said. “That’s critical because that’s urban living,” he said. “This is a suburban space but this encourages residents to participate in that outdoor space.”
The amenity deck and garage will tap into an architectural style common to the Design District but foreign to Bird Road. The garage will incorporate the same layered skin seen on the Museum Garage, said Ethan Royal of Royal Byckovas and one of the designers of the Museum Garage.
“We want to see how the layered skin, as it twists and turns, can live at night with light,” Royal said. “We want to see how it can be porous. As a vehicle moves around a parking garage, we will see how it can create active light and not just depend on artificial, neon lighting.”
Despite being a gateway to Coral Gables, a neighborhood entrenched with a majority Mediterranean-style buildings, the design is meant to appeal to millennial renters, Royal said.
“This is a fun building. It can be seen as poking its tongue out to its neighbor,” Royal said.
Final design plans are still in the works but expected to be completed by February.
Shojaee said he had the project under contract since summer 2019. Talks are ongoing as to where the dealership will relocate, but Deel Automotive Dealerships President Daniel O’Malley discussed redevelopment and expansion plans nearby in December.
This story was originally published January 22, 2020 at 7:00 AM.
