Miami Tower Agrees to Affordable Component

Miami-Dade County has cut a deal with the developer of a Brickell apartment tower to set aside 26 units as affordable workforce housing for lawyers working in the state attorney’s office.

Chicago-based Focus is planning to build a 39-story apartment tower at the site of the former Starlite East Motel at 128 SW Seventh St. in Miami’s Brickell neighborhood. Demolition of the aging motel has begun to clear the way for the 517-unit project, which will be known as Miami Starlite.

At a June 20 meeting of the county zoning board, commissioners tied County Commission approval of the project to a commitment from the developer to provide affordable housing to attorneys working in the Miami-Dade County State Attorney’s Office.

According to a report in Miami Today, the starting salary at the state attorney’s and public defender’s office in Miami-Dade is $68K, more than $10K below the county’s area median income (AMI) of $79,400.

The attorney’s office has lost 156 prosecutors in the last two years, with the pay scale and housing affordability contributing to the difficulty of keeping the positions filled. The report said 35% of the positions at the state attorney’s office are vacant.

Focus was seeking an exemption for the Starlite tower from a 500-unit maximum allowed for properties in a Rapid Transit Zone. The developer proposed a 140% AMI cap, or a salary of about $111K per year, for the 26 workforce units in the tower.

At the zoning board meeting, commissioners persuaded an attorney representing Focus to lower the cap to 120% of AMI and give state attorneys the right of first refusal on the 26 units. They suggested that the workforce units would be quickly rented in an area with high market rates like Brickell.

“I have done this before and I can tell you that those units will be rented in four hours,” said Commissioner Eileen Higgins, Miami Today reported.

After the agreement was reached, the zoning board unanimously recommended that the County Commission approve the Miami Starlite project.

The Gensler-designed tower is planning apartments ranging from studios to three-bedroom units, with balconies on all sides. The Starlite will have 8K SF of ground-floor retail and an eighth-floor amenity deck with a pool that sits atop a 506-vehicle parking garage.