High-Waves' Allapattah Tower Uses Live Local Act to Skip Zoning
An Aurora, Ohio developer is using Florida's Live Local Act to put a 260-unit tower on Allapattah land zoned for light industrial use.
High-Waves Properties, an Aurora, Ohio-based developer with no prior Miami footprint on record, has filed plans for a 260-unit, 12-story tower on a light industrial parcel in Allapattah, using Florida’s Live Local Act to bypass the zoning that would otherwise cap the site far below that height.
Why it matters
The parcel at 1368 NW 29th Street is zoned D1, light industrial, the kind of designation that normally rules out a residential high-rise outright. Live Local Act preempts that: any project setting aside at least 40 percent of its units for households earning up to 120 percent of area median income can claim the tallest height and highest density allowed anywhere within a mile, regardless of what the parcel itself is zoned for. High-Waves is committing exactly that threshold, 104 of 260 units, and getting an entitlement outcome no rezoning application in Miami could likely deliver as fast or as tall. That is the trade at the center of this filing: a workforce set-aside well above what most Miami projects volunteer, in exchange for building rights the site would not otherwise carry. An out-of-state buyer making that trade on an industrial lot is a preview of how much of Allapattah’s next building cycle could run through the same statute rather than through the city’s own zoning code.
The numbers
The tower would hold 260 units, studios through two-bedrooms, with 104 units, 40 percent, reserved for tenants at or below 120 percent AMI. Ground-floor retail totals 3,135 square feet, and the plan includes 258 parking spaces in a podium structure. Architect of record is Caymares Martin. The filing lists a swimming pool, fitness center and co-working space among the amenities, features aimed at a market-rate tenant base sharing the building with its workforce units.
What’s next
The project heads to Miami’s Urban Development Review Board in the coming weeks for design review, the board’s role for a Live Local Act filing being aesthetic rather than a vote on the underlying zoning entitlement, which the statute already grants. Neither the exact hearing date nor a construction timeline has been published. If approved, Ohio Allapattah would be among the first high-rises of its scale in a stretch of Allapattah still dominated by warehouses and light industrial buildings, a test of whether the statute’s density override draws other out-of-market capital to sites the local zoning code alone would never open up.