As Development Boom Comes For Little Haiti And Little River, Pressure Builds To Prevent Displacement

Developers are descending on Little River and Little Haiti with some of the largest projects in Miami history, promising new luxury apartments, retail and commercial space.

But first, they need to tear down wide swaths of the communities, including dozens of public housing buildings and surrounding warehouses to make space, fueling fears that residents living in one of Miami's last pockets of affordability could be pushed out.

Developers and city officials are working hard to ensure the residents of these neighborhoods — more than 10,000 apartments and over 1M SF of new commercial development are planned between Northwest 75th and Northeast 54th streets in the coming years — can benefit from the wave of gentrification about to land, they said at Bisnow's The Future of Little River and Little Haiti event Thursday.

"A lot of people that live there could not afford anything else, and they lived in not the best conditions for anything, safety, cleaning," Gaia Real Estate CEO Danny Fishman said onstage at the Hagerty Garage in Little Haiti.

"Its just neglected, so I think that all this change is also a big transition, bringing amenities to the area," he added.

Little Haiti, also known as Lemon City, and Little River were a safe haven to refugees fleeing political oppression and poverty in the 1970s, originating the Caribbean culture the area is known for today.

Miami is among the nation's most expensive rental markets, and the neighborhoods are two of the last affordable pockets in the city, housing a large piece of Miami's immigrant population and low-income residents in aging single-family homes, duplexes or low-rise apartment complexes.

The average monthly rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Little Haiti is about $1,700 a month, according to a Zumper report. Little River is a little bit more affordable at $1,525 a month. Both are well below the $2,558 average for a one-bedroom apartment in Miami, according to Zumper.

But because they sit along I-95, just north of the Miami Design District, one of the nation's most expensive shopping districts, and less than 2 miles from the coast, they're prime for redevelopment.

Yet, for these projects to move forward, city officials have required community safeguards and benefits from their developers.

"We want [residents] to be part of the process and not just spectators as they see development coming all around them," said Joann Milord, the CEO and president of Little Haiti Revitalization Trust, an entity created by the city to support the neighborhood through redevelopment.

The $2.6B, 8.5M SF Magic City Innovation District is a mixed-use project set to either fill vacant land or replace decaying warehouses in Little Haiti. Approved in 2019 by the Miami City Commission, it includes eight residential buildings with market-rate apartments, seven office buildings, 430 hotel rooms and 340K SF of retail.

As part of the approval conditions, the developers — Bob Zangrillo's Dragon Global, Montreal-based Lune Rouge and Plaza Equity Partners — agreed to provide a total of $31M to the the Little Haiti Revitalization Trust over the next 30 years.

The deal replaced a previous plan to designate 14% of the 2,630 units as workforce housing and 7% as affordable housing, the Miami Herald reported.

Before the project has even started its first phase, the 25-story, 249-unit Sixty Uptown apartment tower, the developers have provided $6M to the Little Haiti Revitalization Trust.

The money is already being reinvested, providing small-business and home rehab grants, a home ownership program, and trade school and college scholarships for residents, Milord said.

"[We need] to bring people to the area, both during the daytime and nighttime, and try to make it a walkable, friendly area where people don't drive through and see these shutting stores and are afraid to stop their car and get out and do something," Plaza Equity Partners Chairman Neil Fairman said.

But that isn't the only massive mixed-use project planned for the area in which developers have agreed to measures that ensure neighbors benefits.

In Little River, SG Holdings, a developer partnership of SJM Partners and Alben Duffe and led by Swerdlow Group, signed a 99-year lease with the county to replace more than 300 public housing units and an array of privately owned sites with a $3B mixed-use district.

The Miami-Dade County Housing Committee approved the project, one of the largest in Miami history, after the developer agreed not to displace residents and to provide worker benefits in March last year.

Swerdlow Chief Strategy Officer Michael Liu said at the event the developers agreed to make low-income or public housing residents 25% of the construction workforce and grant 30% of the subcontracts to small, minority-owned or women-owned businesses and 30% of permanent jobs after construction to local residents.

"It's not just the residents, it's also the opportunities for subcontractors or contractors who are trying to grow their business and making sure that everybody is connected," Miami-Dade Chamber of Commerce President and CEO G. Eric Knowles said.

"We're talking about billions of dollars, and when people get left behind, they feel disenfranchised. So, it's not just the residents, it's the businesses that also should have the opportunity to participate."

The Miami-Dade County Commission last April approved the 63-acre project with more than 5,700 apartments, 370K SF of retail space anchored by the Home Depot and BJ's Wholesales Club, and a new, $35.4M Tri-Rail station.

Even with the approvals, the developers haven't stopped their outreach. Liu said the team has had 60 meetings with families over the past six months and plans to continue doing so throughout development.

With all of the changes developers are proposing, a community with fears of gentrification has come to the forefront of the conversation.

While the city is working hard to ensure developers don't displace residents, it still may be inevitable.

"Every time things change, there are people that cannot afford [it]," Fishman said. "But it's a free economy. Like here versus New York, you basically see people being paid a certain amount of money, and they can move on to different areas when everything changes."