Exclusive: Unique school, apartment building rise in Brickell. Teachers, local workers get priority
Y200723-5-01.jpg "A rendering of Gallery at West Brickell tower, which will include a mix of market-priced apartments and homes priced less for local workers and lower income residents.")
Construction is starting on a key part of a unique $225 million apartment and school community in Brickell, paving the way to provide housing for teachers and the labor force in Miami’s financial district.
It’s a public-private partnership of Miami-Dade County Public Housing and Community Development Department, Miami-Dade County Public Schools and developer Related Urban Development Group to build a public school and apartment tower on county land.
A 29-story, $190 million apartment building is now rising at 201 SW 10th St. adjacent to where work started late last year to build the school, said Albert Milo, president of Related Urban Development Group.
Construction is a year behind schedule due to delays with obtaining building permits and finding contractors. The 465-unit Gallery at West Brickell will include 279 apartments that will be rented at market prices, while the remaining 186 units will be leased for less money to local workers and lower income tenants as workforce and affordable housing. The building is expected to be completed by spring 2025.
The seven-story Southside K-8 Center has been under construction since late last year at 945 SW Third Ave. and should be finished early next year. The $35 million school building will include 10 one-bedroom apartments for teachers who work at the school, a first such combination for Miami-Dade County.
“This is important, because education is the building block for the community so that it can prosper and grow and ensure the staff has options,” said Michael Liu, director of the Miami-Dade County Public Housing and Community Development Department. “That’s why we were willing to allow the school to build a school on our property and have some units of housing there.”
With this project, residents who qualify for affordable and workforce housing will be able to rent a home in one of Miami’s most expensive neighborhoods. Rents have continued to increase in Brickell and across Miami-Dade due to the deluge of corporate expansions, digital nomads and transplants from across the country with deep pockets who sought a less-regulated public health environment in Miami during the ongoing pandemic.
Households have to earn 50% of the county’s area median income of $68,300 per year to qualify for affordable housing and up to 140% for workforce housing. For a single person that means annual income would have to range from $34,100 to $95,500 in order to live at Gallery at West Brickell. Rents range from $750 per month for a studio for affordable housing tenants to $3,950 per month for a three-bedroom market-rate apartment.
“We look forward to using some creative ideas to work with the public school system to do more of these,” Milo said.
Related Urban is in negotiations with the county’s public school system to potentially add housing for teachers at the JRE Lee Educational Center in South Miami. “It’s a new concept of how to work with schools and how those assets can be reimagined to address education and housing at the same time,” Milo said.
Downtown Miami’s low-wage earners will have a greater chance to live close to work, which will benefit the local economy, said Andrea Heuson, professor at University of Miami’s Herbert Business School. In nearby Edgewater, business owners have struggled to find and retain talent due to the increasing cost of living and skyrocketing rents in that part of the city.
“It is a plan that is primed to mimic the kind of socioeconomic mix that you would see in the center of a city,” Heuson said. “You can’t have a world full of luxury condos, because there needs to be people that provide the protection and services.”
Y200723-5-03.jpg "Gallery at Brickell(Cesar-NY)Y200723-5-03.jpg")
Alejandro Moreno, a 28-year-old lawyer and Venezuela native raised in Doral, said he grew up in a diverse mixed-income neighborhood and saw the benefit of socioeconomic diversity.
“It’s great. It’s better to bring more diversity and vibrancy in the neighborhood instead of another luxury condominium. Families bring certitude,” said Moreno, who rents an apartment in Brickell. “You’re going to start to see more small businesses cater to the workforce housing that comes. You’re going to see a neighborhood that reflects its newfound diversity. I’m hopeful for what it brings.”
Gallery at West Brickell and Southside K-8 Center set an important precedent for future development in the county, said Liu, the county’s public housing and community development department head. The county expects to earn $350 million over the life of the lease from the public-private partnership. That money will be used toward building more affordable and workforce housing.
The county also intends to replicate the development model, he said. At least 225 more apartments are in the pipeline for teachers with the redevelopment of the Phillis Wheatley Elementary School near Edgewater and Wynwood. Negotiations are underway, Liu said, but he anticipates construction for the redevelopment to begin in 2024.
This story was originally published September 21, 2022 at 5:30 AM.
