How Naranja Grand's $115M, 320 Units Pencil in South Miami-Dade

Housing Trust Group and Miami Lakes-based Elite Equity Development have delivered all 320 units of Naranja Grand, a $115 million, two-phase apartment community on SW 147th Avenue in unincorporated South Miami-Dade, near Naranja and Leisure City with a Homestead mailing address. The county held a grand opening on September 9. What actually got this built is two separately underwritten LIHTC deals stacked with a Florida Housing Finance Corporation bond, state viability loans and a county surtax contribution, not one $115 million check.

Why it matters

Developers pricing affordable deals in South Florida right now are watching construction and insurance costs eat the same subsidy stack that funded projects like this a few years ago. Naranja Grand’s math is a live comparable: Phase I closed at $44 million for 120 senior units in 2024, and Phase II priced at $71 million for 200 family units, a jump that shows how much more debt and equity a nearly identical unit count needed a year later. For anyone underwriting a LIHTC deal in Miami-Dade today, this is the current cost of doing one at scale.

The numbers

Phase I’s 120 senior units, 91 one-bedroom and 29 two-bedroom at 30, 60 and 70 percent AMI, were financed with $26 million in 9 percent LIHTC equity syndicated through Raymond James, a $26.2 million TD Bank construction loan, a $9 million Freddie Mac permanent loan through Berkadia, a $4.3 million Florida Housing Finance Corporation Viability Loan and $3 million from Miami-Dade’s Affordable Housing Surtax Program. Phase II’s 200 family units, 90 one-bedroom, 98 two-bedroom and 12 three-bedroom at 22, 30, 60 and 70 percent AMI, carried $34 million in 4 percent LIHTC equity, a $39.6 million Florida Housing Finance Corporation tax-exempt bond, a $7.6 million FHFC Viability Loan, a $5 million SAIL loan, $4 million more in county surtax dollars, $1.5 million from the National Housing Trust Fund and a $600,000 Extremely Low Income loan. Rents across both phases run from $425 to just over $2,000 a month, according to WLRN.

What’s next

Watch Miami-Dade’s Affordable Housing Surtax Program for the next award round: the county has now put roughly $7 million combined into Naranja Grand’s two phases, and HTG and Elite Equity are active players competing for the same pool on other South Dade sites. For the county’s broader South Florida affordable pipeline, Naranja Grand is the template other sponsors will cite when they ask for a comparable subsidy layering to make their own deals pencil.