Lewis Swezy Pulls $15.4M Permit for 80 Units in Miami-Dade

Miami-Dade issued a $15.4 million vertical permit on July 28 for an 80-unit apartment building at 2220 NW 41st St in unincorporated Miami-Dade, and county corporate records trace the applicant, Earlington Court LLC, straight to Lewis Swezy, the veteran affordable housing developer behind Miami Lakes-based Centennial Management. Sunbiz shows Earlington Court LLC was formed in June 2024 and is managed by a separate entity, Earlington Court MM LLC, at Centennial’s own address, the standard single-purpose structure Swezy uses across his roughly 3,500-unit South Florida portfolio.

Why it matters

For builders and general contractors pricing workforce and affordable multifamily in Miami, this permit is a dated, real hard-cost number rather than a survey estimate. It comes straight from the permit record, not a developer’s press release, which makes it citable. The project, previously reported as Earlington Court Affordable Housing near the Earlington Heights Metrorail station, is age-restricted to tenants 55 and older earning 30 to 80 percent of area median income and is financed through Florida’s low-income housing tax credit program rather than the Live Local Act.

The numbers

The $15.4 million declared value on 85,824 square feet works out to $179.67 per square foot; spread across 80 units, that is $192,750 per unit in hard construction cost, permit number 2026061179, six floors, contractor of record Z Roofing & Waterproofing Inc. Centennial paid $875,000 for the roughly 0.7-acre, five-lot site in 2019, putting land basis at just $10,938 per unit, under 6 percent of the new construction value, a sign of how much of this project’s economics now ride on hard costs rather than land.

What’s next

The path from pre-application in December 2024 to a vertical permit in July 2026 ran about 19 months. Watch for a construction start date and whether the final unit mix, reported earlier as 60 one-bedrooms and 20 two-bedrooms, holds through the building department’s plan review.