Miami’s Urban Design Review Board approved changes to a proposed condo-hotel in downtown that will reduce parking at the development site by 30 percent and shrink setbacks around the new building.
Kuwaiti company AQARAT and Miami-based Aria Development Group are proposing Yotel Hotel, a 45-story tower at 235 Northeast Second Street, which will have some condos on the upper floors, commercial spaces for restaurants and retail and 263 “cabins,” smaller, minimalist hotel rooms.
The site is located on a vacant lot near a Metromover station and Miami Dade College. According to Miami-Dade property records, NE 2nd Acquisition bought the site for $5.5 million in 2013.
Aria and AQARAT, under the holding company NE 2nd Acquisition, had previously been approved for a 22 percent parking reduction. The review board on Wednesday also signed off on the developers’ request to locate parking for the condo residents in nearby garages within 1,000 feet of the proposed hotel, and granted an 8 percent increase in the development’s lot coverage and approved replacing two residential loading berths with one commercial loading berth. The review board authorized a total of eight waivers.
Carlos Lago, a Greenberg Traurig shareholder representing NE 2nd Acquisition, said the waivers were necessary to create a more urban-oriented development. Lago said the Yotel concept is to offer affordable vacation rentals with luxury amenities.
“It’s an exciting urban product,” he said. “Since you last saw this project in 2015, it has been redesigned to enhance the pedestrian realm, activate the frontages, reduce the building’s height and scale by removing the parking podium, and creating an enhanced open space near the Metromover parcel.”
Lago said Miami 21 allows developers to eliminate parking for residential units if the project is located within 1,000 feet of off-site parking sites. “There is an abundance of public parking in downtown Miami,” he said. “Also [NE 2nd Acquisition] owns a property within a 1,000 feet that can serve for parking.”