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Mixed-Use Development Project Near UM Obtains $95M To Start Construction

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NP International obtained a $95 million construction loan for its Paseo de la Riviera mixed-use project across the street from the University of Miami in Coral Gables.

Click on the photo for a SFBJ rendering sideshow of the Paseo de la Riviera project

Starwood Property Mortgage, as the administrative agent for a group of lenders, assumed the $16.5 million loan originally granted last year by TotalBank and boosted it to $95 million. The borrower is 1350 S. Dixie LLC, an affiliate of NP International led by President Brent Reynolds. The general contractor is Balfour Beatty.

“Paseo de la Riviera will break ground before the end of 2017 and will take two years to complete,” Reynolds said. “Getting the construction loan is a big milestone. We’re pleased to have a great partner like Starwood.”

NP International has yet to announce a hotel brand for the project or select a leasing manager for the commercial space.

The company acquired the 2.7-acre site at 1350 S. Dixie Highway for $44 million in 2016. The 55-year-old Holiday Inn there is being demolished to make way for Paseo de la Riviera.

The project would have 240 hotel rooms, 200 apartments, 4,380 square feet of restaurants, 20,000 square feet of retail, and a parking deck.

“The hotel will have 10 stories, and the apartment building will rise six stories on top of the parking deck,” Reynolds said. “There will be separate pools for apartment residents and hotel guests. The hotel will have a conference room to serve the community, but not full banquet facilities. There really hasn’t been a new or upgraded facilities in quite some time, so to have an upgraded, modern lifestyle brand that serves not only the community and the university, but also the businesses, in the area is a win-win. There will be a paseo for pedestrians to walk between two the buildings, passing from U.S. 1 to a public park. The paseo would draw the community into the project’s open space and encourage both the apartment residents and hotel guests to go downstairs and congregate. It’s almost like an urban living room.”

 

Source: SFBJ

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UM Students Develop Smart Technology Ideas For Design District

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One day Miami’s Design District may produce electricity using renewable energies, and have buildings adorned with rooftop gardens and structures that serve as indoor farms, with multiple levels of crops mixed with fresh markets and restaurants.

CraigRobins, Rodolphe-el-Khoury and Vicente Guallart

CraigRobins, Rodolphe-el-Khoury and Vicente Guallart

University of Miami architecture students are collaborating with Design District developer Craig Robins on ideas to make the neighborhood more technologically and environmentally friendly.

During a class at the university’s Coral Gables campus on Monday, the students — who are divided into six two-member teams — gave Robins their first presentations on how the Design District can become a prototype for how cities of the future can incorporate smart technology and sustainable energy.

“The university was very interested in working with the Design District to develop our vision on how we can add more value,” said Vicente Guallart, a visiting professor who was previously the chief architect in Barcelona, Spain. “Technology is not only about upgrading old systems, but also to introduce new principles.”

Architecture school dean Rodolphe el-Khoury said the students are participating in a class that teaches them to embrace emerging technologies in the shaping and the planning of Miami neighborhoods.

“Guallart was the obvious choice to lead this effort given his track record in transforming Barcelona into a smart city,” el-Khoury said. “The Design District has been very open to new trends and new thinking with a very enlightened developer. We recognized there is a synergy between our efforts and Craig Robins’ agenda in seeking innovation.”

Each team presented graphics and data on six topics: energy consumption, urban agriculture, urban re-industrialization, social interaction, the environment, and mobility. The energy consumption team presented a heat map and proposed how to produce electricity in the Design District using renewable energies. The urban agriculture team presented a proposal for rooftop gardens and new buildings that serve as indoor farms with multiple levels of crops mixed with fresh markets and restaurants.

The urban re-industrialization team showed renderings of digital fabrication factories that would produce products made of recycled materials. The social interaction team used geotagged social media posts to determine which pockets of the Design District lack human activity and proposed placing retail stores and restaurants along those areas. The two other teams are still developing proposals that will be finalized in December.

Robins, president and CEO of Dacra, told the students he was impressed with all their ideas. However, he said that some of the proposals would not be practical in the Design District. For instance, Robins commended the urban agriculture team for suggesting a multi-level urban farm on a property facing Biscayne Boulevard and abutting I-195.

“The land you identified will eventually have a building,” Robins said. “One thing to look at is the zoning and maybe get an additional two to three floors on top of the building for an urban farm.”

Robins also said a factory making products from recycled material would have a hard time staying in business.

“The challenge is  that you ultimately need a successful product,” Robins said. “The gap between being able to get to that from something that is thrown away is the hard part.”

 

Source: The Real Deal

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