Apartment project to bring workforce housing to North Bay Village
Workforce housing is coming for the first time to a village surrounded by Biscayne Bay.
North Bay Village is slated for a 21-story apartment rental community called Shoma Bay with 327 apartments at the corner of 79th Street Causeway and East Treasure Drive.
Seventeen of those apartments, or 5% of the building, will be reserved for discounted workforce housing. The rest of the units will have pricing, which has yet to be determined, to compete with other apartment rental buildings. Layouts will range from 300-square-foot studios to 1,400-square-foot three-bedroom apartments.
The leaders of North Bay Village, a community comprised of three islands between Miami’s mainland and Normandy Isles in Miami Beach, partnered with Coral Gables-based developer Shoma Group for the development.
The project would help meet a growing need for affordable and workforce housing in Miami amid rapidly rising rents. The influx of new residents from across the country during the pandemic, drawn by the trend of remote working and the expansion of tech and finance firms, exacerbated a dire need for housing in Miami.
Prospective workforce housing tenants will qualify to live at Shoma Bay if they earn between 80% and 100% of Miami-Dade County’s median income. In other words, according to data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, a single person would need to earn between about $51,000 and $63,000, while a household of four would qualify if it earned between $72,000 and $90,000.
Workforce housing typically caters to firefighters, teachers and police officers, among others. Meanwhile, affordable housing serves those that earn less than 80%, such as waiters and housekeepers.
“We’ve placed a high value on both affordability and resiliency,” North Bay Village Mayor Brent Latham said. “By codifying substantial workforce housing and green provisions, taking into account the coming macro effects of both climate change and housing scarcity in the region, we can provide a future for our residents that is both dry and inclusive.”
It’s unclear whether a project with only 5% workforce housing will make a significant dent in the growing need for attainable residences in Miami, said Sam Diller, engagement director at the Little Havana-based nonprofit South Florida Community Development Coalition. In a city like New York, he said, developers must include at least 10% of a floor area dedicated to workforce housing for households making 40% of the area median income.
“The market has not done a good job of creating (mixed) income housing. That’s why we have this problem where residents can’t afford to live here,” Diller said. “Is there a magic number? No one knows.”
Construction is expected to begin this summer, said Stephanie Shojaee, chief marketing officer of Shoma Group. The apartment building should be finished by late 2023. Shojaee declined to share the construction budget for the project.
Shoma received approval for its project in March 2021 and then acquired the 2.8-acre site for $16 million. The project will include a rooftop lounge and pool, spa, gym, food hall and an adjacent 6,000-square-foot retail space for Publix.
Shojaee said the firm included workforce housing given the benefit developers gain from adding it to their residential projects. By including it in North Bay Village, Helen Roldan, director of communications for North Bay Village, told the Miami Herald, developers can increase the density of their projects from 70 units per acre, up to a maximum of 150 units per acre.
This story was originally published February 17, 2022 at 6:00 AM.
