Editor’s Note: Center Grove resident Hank Sanchez-Resnik is the founder of Bike Coconut Grove and co-founder of Friends of the Commodore Trail. He is also a member of the Miami-Dade County Bicycle Pedestrian Advisory Committee. He wrote this opinion piece for the Spotlight.
The basic idea of transit-oriented development (TOD) makes good sense: Build housing – combined with commercial and office space – close to public transit, and people won’t need cars to get to the important places in their lives. They can bike, walk or take local transit.
For the Grove, it’s working, to some extent, at both the Douglas Road and Coconut Grove Metrorail stations. Both stations have multi-use buildings with hundreds of apartments, grocery markets, and retail stores, and both connect with major bus routes and the Coconut Grove trolley. Although public transit in Miami-Dade is woefully inadequate, TOD has helped to relieve some of the congestion on our roadways.
The WELL Coconut Grove, a luxury condominium project going up on Tigertail Avenue between 27th Avenue and Mary Street, claims to be transit-oriented development. Prices for its 194 units run from $1.5 million to $6 million.
The existing zoning on the property, T-5, allows for a five-story building, but the developers – a partnership between AB Asset Management and Coconut Grove-based Terra Group – have asked the city to allow for an eight-story building because a zoning loophole, which some refer to as “Enhanced T-5,” grants additional height to buildings if they qualify as a TOD. That loophole, adopted in 2023 after a developer-funded lobbying effort, gives additional benefits to developers within a transit zone by allowing them to build “by right,” which means, among other things, without input from the public
Calling the WELL Coconut Grove a transit-oriented development is a cruel joke. The project will have 382 parking spaces for its 194 luxury units. More importantly, it qualifies as TOD only because a portion of the property is within the TOD zone established by the City of Miami.
The building will be so far from the Coconut Grove Metrorail station, nearly a mile, that getting there on foot, and even by bicycle, will be neither convenient nor safe. The only convenient way to get anywhere from the development – other than Center Grove – will be by car.
Despite uncertainty over the project’s actual distance from Metrorail (and how that distance is measured), City of Miami officials maintain that The WELL Coconut Grove is convenient to public transit and should be awarded all of the height and density “bonuses” available to properties that fall within a transit development zone.
I measured the distance on my bike using two different GPS systems.
Starting in the middle of the block (Tigertail between 27th and Mary), I biked around the “peanut” traffic circle and on the 27th Avenue bike lane to the Metrorail station. I saved about 100 feet when I biked the same route back, because I didn’t need to go as far around the peanut. In both cases, using different GPS systems, the distance was just over .85 miles, i.e., nearly a mile.
Today, even after the addition of bike lanes more than a decade ago, 27th Avenue is ugly and unsafe for both bicyclists and pedestrians as it gets increasingly crowded with motor vehicles because of all the traffic generated by Coconut Grove’s new buildings.
Transit-oriented development assumes relatively convenient access to public transit. For pedestrians and bicyclists, getting from the Grove to Metrorail on 27th Avenue means risking one’s life. In no way does the addition of bike lanes make the street safe or bicycle-friendly.
Bicycle planners now acknowledge that bike lanes offer minimal protection to bicyclists. Protected bike lanes, which provide physical barriers between cyclists and motor vehicles, are becoming the preferred choice, but they’re expensive and they take a long time to get through the required bureaucratic process.
Whenever safety improvements are proposed for a major street, buck-passing is the rule because most major streets are in multiple jurisdictions. The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) controls 27th Avenue. FDOT is notoriously slow to consider any roadway improvements that do not maintain the speed and throughput of motor vehicles. FDOT’s mission is to move cars as fast as possible with minimal delays.
At one point two years ago, FDOT floated the idea of a pedestrian bridge across U.S. 1 at 27th Avenue. Nothing came of that. The intersection is one of the most dangerous in Miami-Dade County. No pedestrian or bicyclist has been killed at the intersection (in recent memory) but that doesn’t make it safe.
Meanwhile, Grovites will watch helplessly as a new oversized building goes up on Tigertail between 27th and Mary. Once built, it will be able to accommodate nearly 400 cars. All of those cars will add to the already dense traffic on 27th Avenue, Tigertail, and Mary.
Who is likely to get to and from the new building – with some degree of difficulty – by public transit? Most likely, it will be “the help.”
“Enhanced T5” zoning category (“transect”) was created out of thin air to avoid the public input and outcry that usually happens when there is an “up-zoning” allowing high-rise development next to single family and low-rise apartment zoned residential properties. It is in direct conflict with the guiding principle of the Miami 21 Zoning Code that allows such up-zonings only after noticed public hearings. The Commission should be ashamed for passing it.@
This article perfectly states the facts about this farce. I’m disappointed in Terra Group a company that has the opportunity to do the right thing and be a good community developer. Instead they are bending the rules they lobbied to put in place. Terra Group is raping the Grove by adding so many units in a horribly congested area. Disappoint is also shed on the elected leaders not protecting the Grove.
The image of US1 and 27th Ave says it all! For those who enjoy an adrenaline rush, try to make it through those crosswalks during the 5pm rush.
The City of Miami has government of developers, for developers, by developers.
Anyone who doubts that is invited to examine the list of campaign contributors to our elected officials.
While I agree with nearly everything written here, I would take exception with the characterization of 27th avenue as ugly and dangerous to cyclists and pedestrians. Ugliness is in the eye of the beholder, I suppose, but I frequently walk and cycle this stretch from Berries to the roundabout at Tigertale and I actually think it’s one of the more pedestrian and bike friendly streets around here. Stroll through Raymond Jungles’s wonderful creation and walk along the sidewalks that are far away from the road so relatively pleasant and as long as you cycle in a reasonable manner at least there is a bike lane. Anyway, this does not negate the fact that our city officials seem to lack much ability to say no to any developer. Why doesn’t Compass or Terra just take over City Hall and at least then we’ll know what the enemy really looks like.
I am appalled again with our city “leadership” allowing Terra and other developers to do whatever they want. As a daily bicycist commuting from Silver Bluff to my job in Coconut Grove I have had to change my route because it is too dangerous to ride by this development that also has the right to take away pedestrian sidewalks! I was almost hit in the crosswalk right by the 27th Ave./Tigertail circle by a lady texting. In her car. This has to stop now.
City leaders are busy covering up how they “enhanced” this deal to go forward – otherwise they would have been happy to produce the sequence of “official” events that got us to this point. They have been asked by multiple constituents to show how a project like this was green lighted – how it got enhanced while sharing a wall with a two story condominium, next door on Mary Street – how it passed below the radar of an engaged community fighting overdevelopment. They say it’s an 8 story development with 129-137 feet of height. I beg you all to go and find an online height calculator for buildings – that height equates to anywhere from 10-14 stories. People can’t get out of the Grove in the mornings. 32nd, 27th, 22nd, and 17th Avenue are backed up until Tigertail. It takes 10-15 min just to get to a light. There’s an 8 story building grew lighted for Lincoln and 27th, the Four Seasons, the closed sidewalks, the he lack of enforcement putting people at risk every time they cross a street. ENOUGH. Show up on 3/13 to City Hall and watch the clown show they are about to present – just like the tree ordinance – all these decisions are being made to benefit developers over constituents! P.S. if city leaders can’t unwind this, compel these developers to fix our sailing club and library – make them do something for our communities!