Kushner Cos. got the go-ahead from the Surfside Town Commission to build an 87-unit luxury apartment building at 9300 Collins Ave. north of Miami Beach.
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The plans from New York-based Kushner include a 1,185 SF synagogue that will allow the property to be classified as mixed-use, a designation that the developer needed in order to build a 184-space underground parking deck at the site.
The three-story project on just under 3 acres was designed by Chicago-based architect Jo Palma + Partners with landscape architecture from Miami-based Savino Miller Design Studio. Its apartments will range from one to three bedrooms, with the largest units spanning two floors. It’s planned to have a rooftop pool deck and 7K SF of ground-floor amenities.
Under the proposal, approved in a 3-2 vote, a 2,250 SF historic building would also be demolished, reconstructed and incorporated into a car drop-off roundabout at the center of the building.
Commissioners Nelly Velasquez and Marianne Meischeid voted against the project, with Mayor Shlomo Danzinger, Vice Mayor Jeffrey Rose and Commissioner Fred Landsman voting in favor, The Real Deal reported.
To win approval to modify the historic property, Kushner entered into an agreement in November with the Miami-Dade County Historic Preservation Board to create a publicly accessible gallery and brochure highlighting the history of Surfside.
Kushner will have to complete the brochure and historical exhibit to secure a certificate of occupancy for the project.
The developer will collaborate with the county Office of Historic Preservation on the gallery, which will include historic photographs, memorabilia and timelines that educate the public on the town’s history and development. The agreement with the preservation board says the exhibit will be located at the new apartment project or “at another suitable, publicly accessible space within the town.”
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The two commissioners who opposed the project, along with Surfside residents at the meeting, expressed concern that the synagogue’s inclusion was meant to circumvent Surfside’s flood regulations, which are part of the National Flood Insurance Program, according to TRD. Similar concerns were raised by residents at the Nov. 30 Planning and Zoning board meeting, where the project passed in a 7-1 vote.
Kushner purchased the site through an affiliate in September for $40M, property records indicate. The seller was Eden Surfside, an entity managed by New York-based developer Menachem Boymelgreen, which in 2018 proposed a 68-unit townhouse project marketed towards Orthodox Jewish families, the South Florida Business Journal reported at the time.
Kushner, led by Charles Kushner, Nicole Kushner Meyer and Laurent Morali, first entered the Miami market in 2019 with plans for a 1,100-unit apartment project across two phases at 2000 Biscayne Blvd. in an opportunity zone in Edgewater.
The pandemic put the project on hold, and Kushner brought Miami-based PTM Partners onto the project in 2021. The joint venture broke ground on the first phase of 2000 Biscayne, a 36-story building with 420 units, in 2022 and won approval from Miami’s Urban Development Review Board in January 2023 for the second phase.
Kushner also partnered with Immocorp Capital in May 2022 on plans to build up to 800 apartments in the multifamily component of a sports-themed complex in Miami Gardens, south of Hard Rock Stadium. The developers are also planning a Wynwood apartment complex in partnership with Aventura-based Faith Group.
Former Kushner CEO Jared Kushner, who left the firm to work in the White House as senior adviser to his father-in-law, former President Donald Trump, launched his new, Saudi-backed investment firm, Affinity Capital, out of Miami.
