Miami-Dade school district HQ in a downtown high-rise? Board revives old deal

A deal to build a new headquarters for Miami-Dade County Public Schools in Miami’s Omni neighborhood is moving forward as the school board begins discussions with a Miami city agency over the future use of several acres of public land.

The school board voted last week to approve a transaction and development agreement with a South Florida developer to move the district’s main offices from its current building to two floors of a high rise tower that would be built on nearby parking lots.

The board also agreed to hash out a plan with the city of Miami’s Omni Community Redevelopment Agency to decide the use of several public properties — a plan that could finally provide a new facility for iPrep Academy, an academically rigorous public school that the district has long been looking to relocate.

The high-rise tower proposal revives years-old plans to build a mixed-use development on parking lots – one owned by the school district, the other owned by developer Crescent Heights – south of the district’s administrative building.

Under the deal’s current structure, no money would be exchanged.

Miami-Dade County Public Schools would convey the land, a parking lot known as “Parcel 7,” to Crescent Heights in exchange for building the district’s new office, an auditorium and 600 parking spaces, into its larger project. The administrative space would occupy two floors in the lower levels of the development, which will include a 43-story residential tower. The district would have its own ground-level lobby and dedicated elevator space.

School district staff confirmed to the Herald that plans for the new tower are the same as those presented in 2021, when a similar project was proposed and later shelved.

According to school board member Joe Geller, the parking lot property was valued at around $27.5 million last year. The new administrative space and parking spaces within the tower are projected to be valued at more than twice that, according to the board’s agenda item.

Situated between Downtown, Overtown and Wynwood, the neighborhood has seen the construction of several high-rise condo and apartment buildings, plus the ongoing expansion of Interstate 395, in the last decade.

Though the board executed the agreement, that doesn’t mean it’s a done deal. The school board, city of Miami and the redevelopment agency still have much to negotiate, including what to do with future tax revenue.

A new iPrep Academy is a priority

In advancing the agenda item, the board voted to execute a nonbinding agreement with the Omni redevelopment agency about the district’s approximately 10-acre assemblage in the area. The board also directed the district to call a board workshop to inform its overall strategy for the land within 120 to 180 days.

Linked to the administrative building deal is the future of other district-owned properties like iPrep Academy, a highly sought-after public school due north of the current administrative building, and Phillis Wheatley Elementary, an Overtown school the board voted to close last week.

Carlos Suarez, executive director of the Omni CRA, and school board members agree that the future of iPrep is an important part of the plan.

School board member Dorothy Bendross-Mindingall, whose district encompasses the Omni area, said at last week’s meeting that her “number one priority” was the future of iPrep and its completion during her tenure. She was one of three board members up for reelection this year to not draw a challenger, automatically granting her four more years.

Suarez told the Herald that relocating iPrep Academy is a “priority” for his agency. Under previous plans, iPrep Academy was going to be relocated to Biscayne Park, an essentially vacant tract of city-owned land located in a prime spot that was at the center of corruption charges filed against a Miami commissioner that were later dropped. The city later approved a plan to allow a neighboring private school to build a “sports dome” on that site, but the private school plan was scuttled in 2024.

In recent months, the city has expressed openness to allowing the school district to use a site currently occupied by a fire station, on the west side of Biscayne Park. However, many board members were not keen on the idea given that the North Miami Ave property sits directly across from railroad tracks serving the Brightline high-speed passenger train.

As for Biscayne Park, Suarez says there are currently no plans for development.

“It is a community park,” Suarez said of Biscayne Park, “and it will not be developed into anything other than a community park.”