A Miami board approved Braman Motors’ 11-story automotive building in Edgewater and former professional baseballer Alex Guerrero’s apartment tower in Wynwood Norte. But the board tied on Acre’s proposed multifamily project near Miami’s MiMo Biscayne Boulevard Historic District.
At their Wednesday meeting, members of the Miami Urban Development Review Board critiqued all of the projects’ designs, including the two that the board approved. Charged with evaluating projects larger than 200,000 square feet, the board only has the power to recommend approvals and tweaks to designs to city zoning staff, who have final say.
Here’s more about the projects and board members’ comments on the designs:
“A cruise ship”
Car dealership tycoon Norman Braman’s firm plans a special area plan project on its 21-parcel assemblage, now home to Braman dealerships, in Miami’s Edgewater.
Under Miami’s zoning code, special area plans (SAPs) allow owners of more than 9 abutting acres to develop master-planned projects with wiggle room on zoning restrictions, in exchange for providing public benefits such as parks or road improvements.
Braman Motors wants to develop a pair of 60-story residential towers with 1,174 units, combined, as well as an 11-story automotive building on a portion of its properties between Northeast 19th Terrace and Northeast 21st Street, immediately west of Biscayne Boulevard. The project includes improvements to an existing gas station, while most of the existing Braman Motors dealership buildings will remain.
The UDRB was tasked with evaluating only the automotive building. Its review of the SAP as a whole, including the residential towers, is expected at a yet-unscheduled meeting. Braman Motors has not yet decided if the units will be apartments or condos.
Architecture firm Arquitectonica created breaks in the auto building by breaking it down into five façades with different designs. The building would run 960-plus feet horizontally between Northeast Second Avenue and Northeast Miami Court, west of Northeast Second Avenue.
It’s rare for South Florida buildings to be this long. During the meeting, attorney Melissa Tapanes Llahues, who represents Braman Motors, likened the building’s length from an aerial perspective to that of “a cruise ship.”
Most board members approved of the façade breaks.
“You have done a great job in breaking up the building in five sections since it’s a very long building. The language is very unique,” said board member Fidel Perez. “You could have an opportunity in breaking it up vertically a little bit more.”
Board member Dean Lewis had a different take.
“I feel that it’s anticlimactic. I think it went too far. I find that this assembly of five different façades pretending to be different buildings, but super connected internally, and the function [of the auto building] is a missed opportunity,” he said.
The building will include a five-story showroom, service bays and service lounge, parts warehouse and inventory storage, the application shows.
The board voted 4-2 in favor, recommending that Arquitectonica also creates visual breaks vertically in the building, perhaps with parapets.
“Missed opportunities”
Multifamily development firm Acre wants to build the six-story, 337-unit Adela II building on the northeast corner of Biscayne Boulevard and Northeast 64th Street near the MiMo Biscayne Boulevard Historic District.
The site is immediately south of Legion Park and directly west of where Acre completed the five-story, 236-unit Adela I building in 2020.
Acre, based in Atlanta, has faced hurdles to developing Adela II for years, including in its effort to rezone the property consisting of 17 lots. In September, the Miami Planning, Zoning and Appeals Board approved the site’s upzoning and future land use map amendment, amid an outcry from some nearby residents.
At the UDRB meeting, several board members took issue with the design’s failure to take advantage of the site’s proximity to Legion Park and Biscayne Bay.
“There is a lot of good design articulation in the project,” said board member Ignacio Permuy. “If you look at the massing, there’s missed opportunities. This is a beautiful site, facing a park, very unique. Water is nearby. It could be perceived as just a very long wall facing the park. You could have easily brought some of the park in and out a lot more.”
Acre plans to partially close Northeast 64th Terrace, which bisects the development site, and create paseos that connect the project to the park.
Instead, Acre could have used the street as a division line to divide the property in two “and open it to the park,” Perez said.
“It’s too bulky,” he added.
Designed by Corwil Architects, the project has concealed parking, consolidated to one area of the building.
Board member Lewis noted that residents whose units are far from the garage may end up walking a distance as long as “a football field.”
Some board members also suggested the architect reevaluate an ellipse-shaped design on part of the roof, which was meant to be a nod to a historic building that’s on a portion of the development site. The historic building will remain.
The developer’s attorney declined the board’s suggestion to withdraw the application and bring it back once it’s redesigned.
But the board’s 3-3 vote means the proposal is to come back in front of the UDRB at its next meeting on May 21.
“Perplexed about the colors”
The most striking aspect of former Los Angeles Dodgers player Alex Guerrero’s proposed 41-story, 234-unit apartment tower is the vibrant color palette on exterior walls.
Guerrero wants to develop the Live Local Act project at 330-356 Northwest 37th Street in the Wynwood Norte neighborhood. It will include 94 units for households earning no more than 120 percent of the area median income. Wynwood Tower, as the project is called, will consist of studios and one- to three-bedroom apartments. Guerrero plans to live in the four-bedroom penthouse.
Valle Valle & Partners, in collaboration with an artists collective and Guerrero, worked on a color palette that Guerrero wanted, said the architect, Erick Valle. The building includes murals of a baseball player pitching and another hitting the ball. In addition, the façade has vertical stripes of various shades of lime green, yellow and red.
“I am perplexed about the colors of the building. I don’t understand where the building begins and the art stops, or vice versa, what’s art and what’s the building,” board member Anthony Tzamtzis said.
The idea was to create visual interest also for drivers on I-195, which runs near the site, Valle said.
Also, “one of the hopes and design intent behind the art is to take visual interest that is perceptible at the pedestrian level and carry it through the building,” said Carli Koshal, the developer’s attorney.
Lewis, one of the board members, said that architectural design and colors are two separate things.
“The architecture is supposed to succeed on its own first,” he said. “Take away the color. Are you happy with what you have?”
The board still voted 4-2 in favor of the project.