The Miami Springs City Council held a workshop meeting on Tuesday to come up with ways to fix issues or “gaps” in the current Gateway Overlay District. Some of the “gaps” include the calculation of parking spaces and using a firm that represents the city and not the developer when conducting traffic studies (unlike the sham study we got for the Springs Town Center. Read our Parking Scandal story to understand what that’s all about.). For the record, we applaud the City Council’s efforts to rectify this.
The City Council also brought up strengthening the requirements to get the credits that allow a builder to increase the FAR from a 1.0 to a 1.7. Maria Mitchell has been steadfast that the City of Miami Springs gave up too much with the Miami Springs Town Center without getting what should have been significant improvements for the City. For example, the project got credit for Pueblo Revival elements yet it looks nothing like the Pueblo style used throughout Miami Springs. A lost opportunity to have a Pueblo style building greet entrants to Miami Springs. (You may not know this, but the corner of Canal Street and Hook Square used to be home to the Curtiss Bright Administration Building. And as you can see below, Glenn Curtiss’ vision for the entrance to Miami Springs was a true Pueblo Revival theme.)
Well, as the City Council discussed different ways to improve the Gateway Overlay District, with not one, but two attorneys, (who stated for the record that they work for other municipalities and land developers as well) we’re seeing more properties go up for sale in the tiny three block Gateway Overlay District.
The property shown here is located at 30 Canal Street. It’s a 4,100 square foot building with 13 rental units. According to county records, the lot size is 10,000 square feet. With a 1.0 FAR, they can easily build a three story building with 10,000 square feet at this location. With credits, they can get to a 1.7 FAR and build up to 17,000 square feet.
According to the commercial real estate website, LoopNet, the asking price for this property sits at $2.89 Million. That’s not far from the $3.3 Million that was recently paid to purchase the Hook Square Property. Yeah, that’s a done deal as of January 14th.
We applaud Mayor Mitchell and the City Council’s efforts to improve the Gateway Overlay District. As for changes to the Gateway Overlay District, the attorneys advised it may take months to make the revisions required to present to Council. It appears to me, it’ll be too little too late. I hope they prove me wrong.
