The Miami Springs City Council unanimously approved a new retail / residential development for 30 Canal Street. You may recall that this property was initially considered for “Employee Sponsored Housing Accommodations” for an aviation company.
Below are some of the original renderings to what we described as an employee sponsored hotel within the Gateway Overlay District.
Since then, a lot has changed. The developers changed their plans to feature a mixed use building with first floor retail and 2nd and 3rd floors for residential. You can see a rendering below. NOTE: Ignore the greenery to the left and right of the building as they do not exist.
The new proposal features a single retail unit on the first floor featuring 1,667 square feet of space with a requirement of 5.6 parking spaces.
The building also features 14 residential apartments with an average size of 913 square feet per unit. At a rate of 2.25 parking spaces per unit, that requires 31.5 residential parking spaces.
As you can see in the plans, the building only has 11 on-premise parking spaces. Combined, this project requires 31.5 residential parking units plus 5.6 parking spaces for the retail unit. That’s a total of 37.1 units which rounds up to 38 total spaces.
Since this project needs 38 parking spaces and only has 11 on-premise units, it’s short by 27 units.
Did the City Lose Over a Million Dollars By Not Establishing a Fee?
Remember when we questioned if the city lost over a million dollars in parking fees by not establishing a parking fee? Well, the good news is that the city finally did establish a parking fee in 2022 after much scrutiny over the city’s handling (or lack thereof) of the development at One Canal Street.
GATEWAY OVERLAY DISTRICT
ON-STREET PARKING FEES:
| On Street Spaces Needed | Cost Per Space |
| 1 to 20 | Â $Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 30,000 |
| 21 and over | Â $Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 40,000 |
As this new project is short by 27 parking spaces, it requires this development to pay $30,000 per parking space for the first 20 spaces or $600,000. Plus, the scale goes up to $40,000 for each space over 20. So that’s $40,000 times 7 for $280,000. The grand total the City of Miami Springs will receive from this project in parking fees is $880,000 or nearly a million dollars for an apartment complex with just 14 units.
Just a reminder, the City of Miami Springs failed to establish and collect any parking fees from the biggest development in downtown Miami Springs history at One Curtiss Parkway. Fortunately, due to the scrutiny of the city’s failure to establish and collect any fees for that project, the city will be able to collect nearly a million dollars from this much smaller project. It’s just a shame the city failed to act timely in establishing and collecting a fee when it first established the Gateway Overlay District as it has clearly cost the city and its residents over a million dollars in lost parking revenues.
As for this new development, each apartment with have two bedrooms. There will be 2 apartments with 866 square feet of space. Ten apartments will have 901 square feet. And finally two apartments will feature 983 square feet.
Furthermore, this project is required to contribute to Art in Public spaces. However, in lieu of adding art to this building, the developer is contributing equivalent funding that will be used towards the Glenn Curtiss Monument proposed for Curtiss Parkway.
In our opinion, we think this is a great development. Here’s why we like it:
- It’s a significant visual improvement to a blighted area.
- The city is collecting nearly $900,000 towards the parking fund.
- It adds new retail capacity downtown.
- Funding is being added towards the Glenn Curtiss and June Bug Legacy Monument that is of public interest both as art and history instead of some random piece of art that can range from atrocious to unmemorable.
Architecturally, I think they’ve done a good job making a square box look interesting. But as they say, art is in the eye of the beholder.
More importantly, what do you think? Do you like this project? Are you happy the city is finally collecting parking fees? Are you pissed off the city failed to establish and collect parking fees on previous projects? Let us know what you think in the comments section below or via social media.
