RAM Realty Advisors and Pinnacle propose to expand their planned multifamily project near the Brightline Aventura station to 334 units.
The developers want to build the 16-story Aventana building with ground-floor commercial space at 19640 West Dixie Highway in the Ojus neighborhood in unincorporated Miami-Dade County, according to an application filed to the county on Monday. The project fronts a section of West Dixie Highway recently renamed West Harriet Tubman Highway.
Designed by Baker Barrios Architects, the proposal is for a larger project than the plan RAM and Pinnacle originally had for 285 units in 2022. At the time, the developers also planned a 15-story building tapering down to 11 stories toward the west side of the site, according to media reports.
The design change comes after county commissioners last year rezoned the site, allowing for “a more efficient design that takes advantage of the Aventura Brightline station,” an attorney for RAM and Pinnacle wrote in the application.
At Aventana, at least 10 percent of the units would be priced as workforce housing, with at least half of those designated for households earning no more than 110 percent of the area median income, according to the application. Miami-Dade’s AMI is $74,700 annually.
Palm Beach Gardens-based RAM and Miami-based Pinnacle dropped $15.4 million for the 2.2-acre development site in 2022.
Led by Casey Cummings, RAM traces its roots to a predecessor entity founded in 1978 by Peter Cummings, according to the company’s website. Since 1996, the firm has purchased, developed and redeveloped $4.4 billion of real estate spanning nearly 14,000 apartments and over 10 million square feet of commercial space.
Pinnacle is led by Louis Wolfson III, David Deutch, Timothy Wheat, Coraly Rodriguez and Hugo Pacanins. The development and construction firm, founded in 1997, has a portfolio of nearly 10,000 multifamily units, including affordable and workforce housing, in Florida, Texas and Mississippi, its website shows.
RAM and Pinnacle are part of a cohort of developers betting that the Brightline station will prompt tenant demand.
Also in Ojus, Lumer Real Estate and Goldberg Companies plan the 700-unit Blue Aventura apartment complex with two eight-story buildings at the northeast corner of Northeast 186th Street and Northeast 23rd Court.
Raphael Ammar, a preschool developer and operator, plans the 18-story, 210-unit Gateway apartment building with 99,600 square feet of offices and 17,600 square feet of ground-floor retail at 2600 and 2630 Northeast 203rd Street.
Yakov Cohen has two projects in the works in Ojus, near the Brightline stop. With his wife, Cheryl Cohen, he plans an 11-story building with 120,000 square feet of offices; 4,400 square feet of commercial space; and 12 apartments at 18802 and 18820 West Dixie Highway. Yakov Cohen and Shimon Bouskila plan a 20-story, 330-apartment building with 10,000 square feet of retail and 200 storage units at 2655-2660 Northeast 189th Street.