At a time when banks and builders are struggling for survival, two developers are seeking government approval for Miami Worldcenter — a nine-block, 25-acre mixed-use project that would be Miami’s biggest urban development in years.The multibillion-dollar project between the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts and the central business district calls for a mix of high-rise offices, hotels, shops, restaurants, entertainment and conference venues, schools, and eventually residences — all built around public plazas and broad sidewalks.
On Wednesday, the developers, Boca Raton-based Art Falcone, a one-time suburban home builder, and Marc Roberts, a former sports agent and real-estate investor who splits time between Jupiter and South Beach, are scheduled to go before Miami’s Planning Advisory Board, the first step in the approval process for their project.
City commissioners are expected to vote on the massive development this fall.
The proposal banks on a renewed desire for city living and would join the ongoing revitalization of downtown, but it also faces an economic downturn in which credit markets have tightened, lenders have gone under and developers are struggling.
”We certainly agree the current market presents challenges,” said Nitin Motwani, managing director and a principal of the project. “But we know real estate goes in cycles and will turn around, especially in a dynamic international gateway city like Miami.”
The developers have already spent $100 million on the project, and that will grow as they close on parcels currently under contract in the nine-block area.
Roberts and Falcone — who made more than $1 billion when he sold his home-building company, Transeastern, to TOUSA — began acquiring land in the Park West area four years ago.
Getting financing in the current economic environment will likely be difficult, but Motwani said the developers plan to seek investment partners soon and are looking abroad for funding.
”What this [difficult] market situation has allowed us to do is take our time and plan the right way,” Motwani said. “It has allowed us to . . . work more closely with the city and county, to understand what they want and what we want.”
DETAILS OF PLAN
The project, to be built in multiple phases over many years, eventually is supposed to comprise upwards of 12 million square feet of new construction — about the size of eight Dadeland Malls. For the first phase, plans call for three hotels and shopping, restaurant, and entertainment components.
But what will characterize the development, says architect Howard Elkus, is its pedestrian focus and emphasis on public spaces.
The plan includes a roughly half-acre park, a traffic circle like New York’s Columbus Circle and a walking strip similar to Miami Beach’s Lincoln Road. The developers envision that decaying Northeast First Avenue will achieve the ”urban role, presence, and spirit” of Paris’ Champs Elysées, according to plans filed with the city.
Today, the Park West area, largely parking lots and nightclubs, is one of the most run-down parts of downtown.
Falcone and Roberts are wagering that their development will be the missing piece in a downtown that includes the Brickell financial district and central business district as job centers, along with cultural and entertainment venues such as AmericanAirlines Arena, the performing arts center, and art and science museums proposed for the waterfront.
Three Metromover stops are within the development area, and a proposed streetcar line would bisect it.
”It’s hard to imagine a site that is more central or better served by a diversity of assets,” said architect Elkus. Based in Boston, he has designed many urban mixed-use projects, including West Palm Beach’s City Place and Victory Park in Dallas.
For nearly two years, Elkus and Michael Cohen, both of the firm Elkus Manfredi, quietly master-planned the site and met with politicians and planners, collectively making more than three dozen visits to South Florida since January 2007.
Cohen said it’s ”extremely rare” to find such a large assemblage of land within a major urban center.
Real-estate analyst Michael Cannon said developing such a large, multiyear project is a tricky balancing act. Each phase must be completed as a viable, stand-alone project but also be integrated with future phases and the downtown infrastructure. Another important factor, he said, is whether the master plan has the flexibility to adapt to changing market conditions.
SEEKING FLEXIBILITY
Worldcenter’s developers are asking for approval of a special zoning district that binds each of the nine blocks to strict development and design standards while allowing flexibility on how each building is used. It also seeks a contract that would cement the deal for 20 years.
The developers say such an arrangement gives assurances about what each building will look like while allowing latitude to adjust to market conditions such as whether shops and hotels would be more viable at a given time than condos.
”To make this type of commitment time-wise and financially, we need to feel comfortable we can execute the plan through its entirety,” said Motwani, who moved to Miami this year to oversee operations.
The Worldcenter project attempts to follow Miami 21, the proposed citywide rezoning that stipulates screening of garages so pedestrians don’t see pipes and other infrastructure, and that puts a premium on ground-floor windows and doors so passersby aren’t confronted with stark walls. Incentives are offered for using green building techniques and for constructing affordable housing within the nine blocks.
