Related Completes Latest Phase of Miami Redevelopment
Ultimately, the developer plans to build 1,800 mixed-income units at the site.
Related Urban Development Group and Miami-Dade County have completed construction of Serenity at Liberty Square, the fourth installment of a nine-phase redevelopment of the site of the Liberty Square community in Miami. The three-building, mixed-use project brings 193 affordable housing units to market in the Liberty City neighborhood after more than two years in development.
Of the phase’s total units, 27 are designated as public housing, 50 as project-based voucher units and the remaining are affordable and workforce housing, all offered to households earning under 80 percent of the area median income. This phase brings the total number of completed units at Liberty Square to 793, with public-private investment in the project so far exceeding $220 million.Â
Built in the 1930s as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal by the Public Works Administration, Liberty Square originally included 709 single-story, barrack-style homes. Once complete, the redevelopment of the 60-acre Liberty Square site will include a total of 1,800 new public, affordable, workforce and market-rate units, along with educational facilities, healthcare services, retail and green spaces.
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The completed phase is now home to the Jessie Trice Healthcare Center, which will provide medical services to the surrounding area. The Miami-Dade Chamber of Commerce has also established a headquarters at the property, which represents a return to the area in which it was founded a little more than 50 years ago.
A pair of loans totaling $47.5 million from Florida Housing Finance Corp. and Wells Fargo Bank funded construction of phase four. Other sources of financing included tax-exempt bonds, LIHTC equity, the Florida Housing State Apartment Incentive Loan program and the Miami-Dade County Surtax.
In its home market of South Florida, Related Urban Development is also at work on Lincoln Gardens Elderly, a 77-unit affordable housing development for seniors being built in the Brownsville neighborhood of the city. Also being built is the 334-unit, mixed-income Princeton Landings in southern Miami-Dade.
South Florida Multifamily Market Still Active
Multifamily development in South Florida is still relatively brisk. Some 15,249 units, 4.1 percent of the region’s existing stock, was delivered in 2024 a number that outpaced the nation by 110 basis points, according to Yardi Matrix data.
The average overall occupancy rate in the region for stabilized properties barely moved year-over-year at the end of 2024, the same source notes. The rate was down only 10 basis points compared with a year earlier, coming in at 95.3 percent.
Multifamily investment sales transactions in the market remained at a moderate level last year, with $2.3 billion in assets changing hands. Thus the sales volume was similar to 2023, but below 2021 and 2022’s record-breaking levels.
