Plan for 140-foot condo near single-family homes fails before Miami Beach Planning Board
A developer’s plan to build a 140-foot luxury condo tower across the street from a single-family neighborhood in Miami Beach suffered a bruising blow Tuesday when the city Planning Board recommended that the City Commission reject the project.
The board sided with the more than a dozen residents who waited up to three hours to call into Tuesday’s virtual meeting to voice their opposition to the proposed Alton Bay development. The high rise would be built at 4000 Alton Road, near the Julia Tuttle Causeway and adjacent to Talmudic University.
“It’s not a neighborhood to have a high rise in,” resident Hector Villamar told the Planning Board. “This is just inconsistent with our neighborhood.”
The City Commission will have the final say when it votes on the proposal at two upcoming meetings, the first of which is Sept. 16.
In its proposal to the Planning Board, developer Mast Capital asked that the city create a new zoning district for Alton Bay to exceed the current 85-foot height restriction and to rezone a half-acre plot of state land for the developer to build higher. Mast Capital, led by CEO Camilo Miguel, bought the current parcel from the university in 2014 for about $17 million.
Board members, who voted unanimously against the project, said the proposed height would clash with the sizes of surrounding buildings. Planning Director Thomas Mooney said the height increase “could set a precedent for future efforts to increase maximum building heights, particularly along 41st Street.”
Mast Capital proposes to build the high-rise 100 feet from the street, provide more than 40,000 square feet of green space and add water-management elements like wells, drainage pipes and a pump station. Mooney said city staff had yet to iron out the details of the resiliency features.
This story was originally published August 25, 2020 at 7:16 PM.
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