Faith Group Plans 14-Story Live Local Tower Near Aventura
An aging medical office building near Aventura becomes the test case for how far Live Local's density override can push an infill office site.
The Faith Group has filed plans to demolish the two-story, 37,000-square-foot office building it has owned since 2005 near Aventura and replace it with a 14-story, 376-unit apartment tower under Florida’s Live Local Act. The Aventura-based firm, led by co-founders Kevin and Victor Faith, controls the roughly 1.8-acre assemblage at 2627 and 2691 NE 203rd St in unincorporated Miami-Dade County, where the existing Medical and Executive Offices of Aventura building has housed the company’s own headquarters.
Why it matters
This is an entitlement play as much as a construction one. Live Local lets a developer bypass local zoning’s density and height caps as long as a set share of units is set aside as workforce housing, which is exactly the tool the Faith Group is using to take a low-rise 1980s office parcel to 14 stories without a rezoning fight. For owners of aging office stock across South Florida, Gateway 2 is a live test of how far that override can stretch on an infill site this size, and how a private landowner can convert its own headquarters parcel into a much denser use than local code would otherwise allow. See our South Florida market hub for more Live Local filings moving through the pipeline.
The numbers
The proposed tower, dubbed Gateway 2, would rise 14 stories and roughly 570,000 square feet on the combined 1.84-acre site, replacing a 36,938-square-foot office building built in 1986. The filing calls for 376 apartments spanning studios through three-bedroom units, with at least 40% reserved as workforce housing for households earning up to 120% of area median income. Plans show 436 parking spaces, a 5,000-square-foot indoor amenity space and a pool deck, designed by Idea Architects.
What’s next
The filing now moves through Miami-Dade County’s review process rather than a municipal one, since the site sits in unincorporated county territory outside Aventura’s city limits. Watch for a Development Review Committee hearing date and whether the unit count and affordability split filed with the county hold through that review, the same phase where several other Live Local projects in the market have seen unit counts shift.