Features: What We Build — May/June 2007

Midtown Miami

Former Miami rail yard being transformed into elegant high-rise condos

by Debra Wood

Workers form the pool deck at 2 Midtown. The pool deck is located on the seventh floor above six floors of parking. Photo courtesy of Balfour Beatty

After sitting fallow for years, a   former rail yard just north of downtown Miami now hums with activity as multiple residential and retail structures rise to create the $3-billion Midtown Miami development.

Project developer Midtown Group of Miami, a partnership between Midtown Equities of New York and Samuel & Co. of Boca Raton, Fla., saw potential in the 56-acre brownfield site and purchased the Florida East Coast Railway’s former Buena Vista Yards to establish a mixed-use development near Miami’s Design District.

The developer predicts that at build-out, the complex will include 3,000 condominiums priced from $195,000 to $1.7 million and more than 1 million sq ft of retail space. The condos will be located in eight high-rise towers, one mid-rise building and live/work units surrounding the commercial spaces. Midtown Group expects total sales to reach $3 billion. Construction costs are pegged at $1.5 billion.

The developers entered into a public-private partnership with the city of Miami and Miami-Dade County, with the governments forming the Midtown Miami Community Redevelopment Agency. The agency was formed under the Florida Administrative Code and issued $103 million in bonds to provide roads, water and sewer lines, landscaping and parking facilities.

That funding required a portion of the project to finish by the end of 2006 or the developer would be responsible for paying the interest on the bonds, says Bruce Cutright, director of operations for Midtown Miami.

2 Midtown includes three distinct sections to avoid the perception of the building overpowering its surroundings. Image courtesy of Balfour Beatty

Balfour Beatty Construction Inc., Atlanta, overcame logistical problems, multiple hurricanes and late-stage design changes to deliver on time Miami’s 2 Midtown, one of the project’s mixed-use high-rises, enabling the developer to meet bond-funding obligations.

“Our building became critical because we had enough square footage that if we got it [done], we were able to satisfy the requirement of the bond,” says Jim Gough, Balfour Beatty vice president, whose firm is construction manager-at-risk for 2 Midtown. The project was started by Centex Construction, which was acquired by Balfour Beatty in February.

Developers Diversified Realty Corp., Beachwood, Ohio, purchased half of the site to develop the 645,000-sq-ft Shops at Midtown. Tenants include Target, Linens ’N Things, Circuit City and PetSmart.

“We didn’t want this to be just zoned residential,” Cutright says. “We wanted a 24-hour environment.”

Bernard Zyscovich and Suria Yaffar of Miami-based Zyscovich Inc. developed the master plan and wrote a zoning code and design guideline to make the complex more pedestrian-friendly and integrate it with the surrounding urban neighborhood. The company also designed 2 Midtown.

“Bernard calls it real urbanism, which essentially is analyzing an existing city—understanding its strengths, both in terms of economics and cultural—and doing in-fill projects,” says Brandon Spirk, Zyscovich’s project architect for 2 Midtown.

A City Block

 2 Midtown consumes an entire city block, creating the illusion of multiple buildings within one interconnected structure. Its 348 units, ranging in size from 1,500 sq ft to 3,472 sq ft, sold out within a few days of going on the market.

Cutright credits its popularity to the building’s presence in the mixed-use development. “We’ve created not just a residential tower but a full city, with a lot more amenities than anything else,” he says.

Zyscovich designed three distinct residential entities at 2 Midtown to appeal to different buyers. They share parking, a pool and an amenities deck. The residential units wrap around a six-level parking structure.

“The design objective is to see the individual character of the components more than you see the building as a whole,” Spirk says.

The eight-story mews occupies the south side of 2 Midtown. Six ground-floor units are designed for a small retail shop or doctor’s office, with living space above. The remaining live/work units contain professional office space within the unit’s residences.

The 12-story midrise building sports an arty, industrial motif, reminiscent of a warehouse conversion. Units have an open, airy feel with exposed concrete ceilings. Exposed concrete and block decorate the lobby.

Spirk describes the 32-story tower as more refined and chic. Limestone and terrazzo cover the lobby floors. Millwork panels mask the concrete shear wall. The units have traditional floor plans and the building is clad in a stucco and structural glazing system.
           
Construction Issues

Balfour Beatty began construction on the $97-million, 850,000-sq-ft 2 Midtown in January 2005, and obtained a temporary certificate of occupancy in December 2006. It wrapped up work in April.

“The biggest challenge we had was building around all of the infrastructure work going on,” Gough says. “The scheduling was tight.”

The cast-in-place, post-tension concrete building sits on an auger-cast pile foundation. The tower began as a 30-story structure, but when developers secured approval for additional floors after construction began, the team scrambled to make it happen without adversely affecting the schedule. More piles and modifications to reinforcing steel in the shear wall and columns were needed to carry the additional load, delaying the work about six weeks, Gough says.

“We were given a change to add a number of piles to the building at the moment we were starting to excavate for the pile caps for the old design,” he adds. “You can’t excavate efficiently because you have to bring back a rig to put piles in certain points in the foundation. You almost have to stop, bring the pile rig back, get the piles in and then go back to excavation.”

The additional floors necessitated more wind testing, and they required approval from the Federal Aviation Administration because of the close proximity to Miami International Airport.   

Further complicating the job, four hurricanes passed through the area during construction and affected the schedule. While all of them required tying down equipment and materials to prepare the site, Wilma knocked out electrical power for weeks, delayed crane availability and created plywood and drywall delivery problems.

Florida East Coast Railway already had remediated much of the groundwater and petroleum contamination, Cutright says. However, the soil left behind contained an arsenic-based herbicide used along the former tracks.

Rather than scrape and haul away the contaminated dirt, Midtown chose to encapsulate the site with building foundations, roadways and impermeable surfaces to isolate the soil from contact. All stormwater remains on-site and is discharged through deep drainage wells.

“Everywhere where there is a planter or a grassed median, we excavated down to a depth of 3 ft and replaced that soil with clean topsoil from offsite that met all of the EPA’s criteria,” Cutright says. “The soil we excavated, we placed under the buildings on other sites. It was an economical and efficient way of compliance with the environmental regulations.”

Every worker was educated about the contaminated soil and precautions  such as frequent hand washing and avoiding contact with the dirt. Balfour Beatty added hand-washing stations at the jobsite. 

“If we excavated fill, we had to keep it on- site and not export it until we did testing,” Gough says. “We’d place it in a certain area. If we needed backfill, we would get it. Otherwise, the owner took care of hauling it off.”

More Midtown Coming

The 34-story 4 Midtown, also constructed by Balfour Beatty, topped out in April. Cutright expects completion of the 950,000-sq-ft, 398-unit building by year’s end. Bovis Lend Lease’s  Miami office continues working on the $60-million Midblock, an 11-story condominium. Completion of the 548,031-sq-ft, 162-unit structure is scheduled for summer.

Midtown Group continues to negotiate with contractors to build the 30-story 3 Midtown residential tower. A start date has not been set.

Two other residential towers, 5 Midtown and 6 Midtown, remain in design. Midtown Group has talked with a hotel chain about operating a lodging facility at 1 Midtown, which also will contain residential units, and is yet to be designed. Midtown Group proceeded with residential buildings during discussions with potential hotel operators.

The North Block of the Shops at Midtown, built by the Tower Group of Davie, Fla., has opened, as have several free-standing retailers. A potential tenant has signed a letter of intent to lease the last big-box space from Developers Diversified Realty Corp.