Block 45 Gets Utilities For 616 Apartments

The developers of the Block 45 tower in Overtown has secured water and sewer utilities from Miami-Dade County.

According to the July 11 agreement, Block 45 will include:

  • 616 apartments
  • 5,013 square feet of retail
  • 15,093 square feet of full service restaurant
  • 5,013 square feet of fast food restaurant

The developer had inked a utilities deal in March 2020, just as the pandemic was hitting. Since then, the developer opted to put the planning and permitting process through the County system, rather than go through the City of Miami rules.

The new agreement reduces the retail space compared to the 2020 agreement, in favor of more restaurant space.

The project is also planned to include an 8-story garage with 605 parking spaces.

Atlantic Pacific Communities, LLC is the developer of Block 45. Bermello Ajamil is the architect.

 


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Anonymous
10 months ago

Wow, Overtown is getting some beautiful architecture.

Anonymous
10 months ago

This is very NYC

Anonymous
10 months ago

Minus the parking podium

anon
10 months ago

NY buildings have pools

Anonymous
10 months ago

Minus the balconies, lack of articulation, and neighboring similar towers. Essentially, nothing like NYC other than multi-family.

Anonymous
10 months ago

Miami does n’t need to be like Ny City we want to be original not a copy cat and always be under the shadow of the big apple

Anonymous
10 months ago

I am very curious to see what Overtown will shape up to be. Will be a mostly residential neighborhood, will it have mostly bars, clubs, restaurants or perhaps big stores? It could easily be the new Wynwood with a jazz/blues flare but it could also become similar to Midtown.

Anonymous
10 months ago

My comment to people who want to see Overtown open up jazz and blues clubs is… if you are going to gentrify and kick out the black residents then the neighborhood is not going to be it’s authentic self. If the residents of Overtown don’t stand their ground and come together to uplift their on there own or hopefully with the help of the local govt it will simply get wiped out and turn into another midtown. Overtown and little Haiti are going to be the first to fall… next will be little Havana. The vibes are created by the residents and the community not developers.

Anonymous
10 months ago

Hopefully with the help of local government? Why is always the government be needing to help certain people? Why can’t they work for it like everybody else?

Anonymous
10 months ago

How about because the government destroyed a thriving black neighborhood to build the 95/395 interchange literally dividing the neighborhood in four quadrants

Checo
10 months ago

Just curious….serious question to the crowd of urban planning enthusiasts.

It wasn’t “government”….those decisions were made by people. People in the Gov’t Bureaucracy. Bureaucrats think that they have the right answer for everything, and the general public is just not educated on any issue. But, what were they supposed to do?

Looking at Google Earth, and thinking about the goal to connect all major cites, where would YOU have put I95 in Miami Dade County to promote connectivity and commerce?
a. Off to the west through the center of the Miami International Airport
b. To the west a little bit to “destroy” Brownsville/Allapatah instead of
Overtown.
c. To the east, up on stilts and running overtop of the coral reefs, Johnson’s
Seagrass, from downtown Miami through Ft. Lauderdale, W Palm Beach,
etc.
d. Along the edge of the water where the real estate is most valuable for
residential development
e. Right about where it is now

Those government people where given Federal Taxpayer’s money to connect all major downtown cities through an Interstate Freeway System throughout the whole USA. Optimists would say, the Interstates CONNECTED the USA, and the pessimists will say that they DIVIDED neighborhoods.

I”ve heard a lot of intelligent people tell me that I95 is racist.
They don’t really think that deeply about it. Concrete is not racist, nor is re-enforcement bars. What they are saying (without knowing they are even saying it) is that the Gov’t Bureaucrat people back then, were racists. I’m not even so sure about that. Seems to me that they had to find a path to put a road, and they had to chose something somewhere.

Pete
10 months ago

95 could have been built where the palmetto is currently or east of Hialeah where at the time there was relatively low development of it and Miami springs. Then just came east into the downtown Area. Your statement on looking a google earth is flawed as you’re looking at a modern day miami not one the urban planners were looking at when the highway was being planned. The reason Overtown and many places like it were chosen were simply because it was the the areas of least resistance. The residents were second class citizens and any resistance from them could easily be squashed by the federal government. Similar today how China has built its high speed rail lines through its country. Despite being ran by a communist party with unchecked power. They choose communities that are of less desirable people of economic status by the government. They then force these people to move for the “greater good of China”. In the end it’s all about who has a seat at the table and if everyone who will be affected is not represented at the table do not dare to attempt to justify that was made knowingly disregarding a group of people.

Anonymous
10 months ago

How do YOU know it was thriving before the interstate? I’ve had an old timer who grew up in 1940s what-is-now Little Havana tell me a different story.

Adam
10 months ago

Do some reading. Overtown had more than 30,000 residents with all the businesses they needed to support them (because black residents weren’t welcome the rest of Jim Crow Miami). The bars and restaurants on 3rd were called the Broadway of the south. Today it has about 9,000. The construction of the racist (look it up) freeway interchange, coincided with the FHA that let people move more easily.

If I were designing an interstate connection to Orlando or Tampa I would have started it outside the city and never brought it downtown (or to Miami Beach) like this. Interstate freeways are great connecting cities, but they are awful inside cities connecting commuters from the white only suburbs to their offices downtown.

Anonymous
10 months ago

Well, the government helped the Germans rebuild Germany after WWII.

Oh hello
10 months ago

No one is kicking anyone out. Everything changes, everything grows, if you don’t work on yourself and grow with your environment, you will not fit with it anymore. Gentrification is a great thing just as much as self-accountability and self-care.

Drac
10 months ago

“No one is kicking anyone out. Everything changes, everything grows, if you don’t work on yourself and grow with your environment, you will not fit with it anymore”

I would like to see you explain that to people who live on reservations.

Checo
10 months ago

For the history of mankind, LONG before sailing ship technology made it possible for Europeans to ever access North America, the natives were “kicking each other out” of land.

The Comanches famously mastered horse riding, raiding, conquering, enslaving, kidnapping, terrorizing, and general raping and pillaging. They nearly exterminated the Apaches. It was gruesome.

Other natives, famously scalped their victims. A very brutal technique where the flesh and hair was sliced off of a victims head and held as trophies.

This is how I’d explain it to people on the reservations. Tough break man, many of your ancestors were brutal torturers and rapists, and it is probably better that a group of people started this United States of America and put an end to that awful stuff.

Pete
10 months ago

This is the most ignorant comment I’ve seen in a while. To insinuate that tribal warfare came anything close to what the United States government and other European nations did to the Native American people is mind blowing.

Pro-Gentrification
10 months ago

Whether it becomes a jazz-centric area or “another midtown,” it will most certainly be a positive change from its current state. Take a drive through the area, if you dare, and tell me it’s something worth preserving.

Winner
10 months ago

Comment of the day

Anonymous
10 months ago

If you dare… excuse me but y’all racists or y’all just scared white people. I’m a light skinned Latino born and raised in Miami and I do walk through Overtown and I’m not scared to walk anywhere in Miami

anonymous
10 months ago

thats like saying the people who had farms in Manhattan should have revolted to stop the development of the city. Areas change over time

Anonymous
10 months ago

This isn’t comparable at all. This is a neighborhood where people currently live and a neighborhood where people will continue to live the only change people want to see is the current residents

Anonymous
10 months ago

“The only change people want to see is the current residents.” Are you kidding? It’s literally everything but that. We want to see the development level, including residential/commercial/office properties, change. We want to see it become a safe, walkable area with prosperous businesses, full of restaurants/parks/shops and fully connected to the adjacent sections of downtown.

Checo
10 months ago

Ending segregation was a good thing.

It was not good for Overtown.

Wealthy and industrious people in Overtown got the hell out of there the first chance they had, and left those unable to leave, or unwilling to leave behind.

No one kicked the affluent blacks out of Overtown, they left willingly, and they left swiftly.

Melo is sigma and chad
10 months ago

Finally its getting started, it will compliment the under construction aldi, target & senior apartment building.

Anonymous
10 months ago

Shielding it, hopefully. That project looks awful and this is a stunner.

Anonymous
10 months ago

Overtown growing at a rapid pace!

Anonymous
10 months ago

Glad to see that Overtown is starting to build more 30+ story buildings towards the west

No road, No rail, No future
10 months ago

But where are the people? It’s still hardly less deserted now at street level in the afternoons than 7 years ago.

mo jones
10 months ago

that little area is going to be jumping after all is said and done

More Parks Downtown!
10 months ago

This area of Overtown could really use a formal park as density spreads west of downtown. I really like the design of this building and some manicured green space nearby would compliment it rlly well. Preferably not under a highway.

Anonymous
10 months ago

You “park nuts” really need to take a break.

Anonymous
10 months ago

Lummus Park is within walking distance and very underutilized.

Anonymous
10 months ago

Overtown will soon be the spot in town

Anonymous
10 months ago

What is your definition of “soon”? I don’t see it happening for another 10-15 years at least. If you don’t believe me, take a stroll through the neighborhood, and not just the section adjacent to Miami Central. It’s hella sketchy.

anon
10 months ago

I anticipate it redeveloping rather quickly once the bridge contractors start to clean up and move out. It’s definitely blighted, although I don’t know about sketchy. Regardless, the bridge project delay did nothing positive for this area. my guess would be 5-7 years that the neighborhood starts to have new developments opening online.

Anonymous
10 months ago

Soon, in urban planning, is indeed a 5-10 year period as a minimum so that is what I mean by soon. And yes, it’s sketchy now and now is the time to make the deals happen. Now is the time to invest in Overtown, not when it’s already expensive.

Southwest Til' I die!
10 months ago

That’s a handsome building.

anonymous
10 months ago

Way too much parking. Very close to multiple transit options. Target 0.0 – 0.5 ratio

Anonymous
10 months ago

Um yeah sure.. I’ll just jump on the metrorail and ride it all the way from SW 19th st and SW 17th ave to this apartment project in Overtown and then ride it all the way back home.

Hold up, waitaminute….

Anonymous
10 months ago

Water and Sewer Winning.

Anonymous
10 months ago

Bermello Ajamil can teach those architects at Arquitectonica a thing or two.

SkidroweDC
10 months ago

Not loving the architecture of the tower, but I greatly appreciate that the street-level rendering includes Black people. One of many ways that, despite flashy moves, Miami’s developers are way behind much of the country is the rarity in which one sees non-white people in renderings. Even medium-brown Latinos are uncommon, a bit of a surprise given Miami’s demographics. Here, presumably, it’s a nod to the Overtown location. Quite possibly delusional, even cynical relative to the likely reality of the tenant mix. Yet still welcome.

Anti-Woke Blue Voter
10 months ago

Who gives a fuck what color people are in renderings?

MBeach
10 months ago

Welcome to the 70″s

Azure
10 months ago

Horrible looking building. Looks like something you’d see in Reno or worse.

MBeach
10 months ago

The person that designed the parking garage should have worked on the tower.

Anonymous
10 months ago

The patchy parking garage is the only bad thing about this building. The tower is a box done right.