$600M Mixed-Use Project Underway in Miami
Adler Group and 13th Floor Investments have joined forces to transform the Douglas Road Metrorail station into a massive transit-oriented development encompassing 1,500 residential units, along with significant office and retail components.
Link at Douglas. Rendering courtesy of 13th Floor Investments
A joint venture between Adler Group and 13th Floor Investments has broken ground on Link at Douglas, a $600 million transit-oriented development in Miami. The 7-acre development, comprised of apartments, retail and office space and a public plaza, will reimagine the city’s Douglas Road Metrorail station. The development is a public-private partnership involving the development duo and Miami-Dade County. Another Miami transit-oriented development built by the same joint venture—the 25-story Motion at Dadeland situated next to the Dadeland North Metrorail station—had its ribbon-cutting ceremony in early April.
Link at Douglas will be built in phases over the next five years. The development will include 1,500 residential units, 25,000 square feet of retail space, a 250,000-square-foot office building and a public plaza that will connect with The Underline, a 10-mile-long linear park extending from downtown Miami through neighborhoods to the south. The selection of apartments will feature both market-rate and workforce housing.
Urbanization and more
Why is this the right time for Link at Douglas? “We envision a confluence of three big trends: urbanization, advent of mobility services and the third we have not yet seen but is coming, and that is the arrival of autonomous-electric vehicles,” Aaron Stolear, associate vice president for 13th Floor Investments in Miami, told Multi-Housing News.
“We’re moving to a world where mobility is about optionality and using the best tool to get where you need to go. The value of having a transit-oriented development as your home or office is only going up, not down. And so when we think about the right reason to build a transit-oriented development, we believe the future is bright.”
Link at Douglas’s mobility plan includes connectivity to Metrorail, county buses and municipal trolleys. The Adler Group and 13th Floor Investments site plan will incorporate more than $17 million in public infrastructure improvements, $1 million of which is being earmarked for the development of The Underline. In total, Link at Douglas is anticipated to produce $500 million in new revenue for Miami-Dade County.
The site itself benefits from a unique location, but requires remediation, Stolear said. “The upside of the site is it’s the hole in the donut,” he told MHN. “Everything around it is being developed, but this is the least desirable site, giving us the chance to completely redevelop it. When you’re talking about public-private partnerships, there are always complexities. But our partners at the county have been extraordinary in seeing the site’s potential. We have a great working relationship with the partners at the county.”
Two towers
Designed by Corwil Architects, the first tower at Link at Douglas will stand 22 stories tall and feature 312 apartments and 6,000 square feet of retail. The second tower, designed by Arquitectonica, will be 36 stories in height and will include 421 apartment units and 17,000 square feet of retail. Vertical construction will commence this summer.
Just under 14 percent of residential units will be designated workforce housing.
A key to the development has been the ground lease of publicly-owned land by the JV. “That allows us as a private company the opportunity to spread the cost of the land over 90 years and it gives the county consistent and growing revenue,” Stolear told MHN.
