The first phase of a $1 billion mixed-use project near Sweetwater’s Dolphin Mall is in motion after David Martin’s Terra scored a $170 million construction loan.
Terra plans to break ground next year on a 578-unit apartment community at a 47-acre development site owned by Miami-Dade County that includes an existing bus depot, a press release states. The Coconut Grove-based development firm is in a public-private partnership with the county to build Upland Park, which will entail more than 2,000 apartments and roughly 696,000 square feet of commercial space when fully built.
Scale Lending, an affiliate of New York-based Slate Property Group, provided the financing for Upland Park’s first phase, the release states. Keith Kurland and Jonathan Schwartz with Walker & Dunlop arranged the loan on behalf of Terra.
Upland Park will connect to Dolphin Station, a Miami-Dade transit terminal where residents living near the Florida Turnpike can park their cars and catch bus routes to downtown Miami, Sweetwater and Doral, county records show.
The project is being designed by Doral-based PPK Architects in collaboration with Miami-based firms Arquitectonia and Plusurbia Design.
In 2021, the Miami-Dade County Commission approved the deal with Terra, and a year later the firm landed a $35 million pre-development loan from Coral Gables-based Dolphin KS Finance, records show.
In January, Terra and Coconut Grove-based Grass River Property completed Grove Central, another transit oriented mixed-use project adjacent to the Coconut Grove Metrorail Station. The same month, the joint venture secured a $245 million refinancing from J.P. Morgan for the 23-story Grove Central.
The project entails 402 workforce and market-rate apartments, a 1,250-space parking garage and 170,000 square feet of retail space anchored by Target, Sprouts Farmers Market, Total Wine & More and Five Below.
Terra is also partnering with Bay Harbor Islands-based Atlantic Pacific Companies and Chicago-based Sterling Bay to possibly bid next year on Metrocenter, a $10 billion public-private partnership project involving 17 acres of county-owned land in downtown Miami. The joint venture is vying against two other star-studded development teams that recently qualified to bid on a Metrocenter request for proposals expected to be issued in the coming months.