The City of Miami agreed on Thursday to provide $4.2 million in funding for another affordable housing project on Grand Avenue in the West Grove, this one with 56 “micro” condominiums priced for sale to low-income families in the city.
The proposed Grand Bahamas Place project is the sixth major development announced in the last year for a long-neglected stretch of Grand Avenue.
Five of those projects promise to bring new housing to the neighborhood. Of those, three will include housing priced for low- and moderate-income families.
Grand Bahamas Place is a collaboration among three partners – Prospera Real Estate Collective, the Collective Empowerment Group and Believers of Authority Ministries.
Believers of Authority is led by pastor John H. Chambers III. Chambers is the president of the Coconut Grove Ministerial Alliance and the vice chairman of the Collective Empowerment Group.
Ellen Buckley, a former director of development at Terra Group in Coconut Grove, is the founder and chief executive of Prospera Real Estate, which will manage the project.
The developers are seeking to build a mixed-use development with housing, retail shops and a church on three pieces of property sandwiched between Gibson Plaza and the former Tikki Club on the north side of Grand Avenue near Douglas Road.
Believers in Authority own two of those properties – a 4,500-square-foot-lot at 3655 Grand Avenue where a church building now stands, and a 5,000-square-foot empty lot directly behind it, at 3650 Florida Avenue.
The third parcel, a 9,000-square-foot empty lot at 3659 Grand Avenue, is owned by Stirrup Properties. That property, where food trucks are now parked for the weekly Taste of the Bahamas event, is under contract to Believers of Authority, city officials said.
The developers intend to use $2.2 million in city funding for the acquisition of that property. The remaining funds from the city will help to cover construction costs for the $21.3 million project.
Once the project is complete and sales begin, the city’s $4.2 million will be rolled over to provide downpayment assistance to low-income buyers.
The development would be split between two buildings – a five-story residential building, and a second two-story building with ground floor retail and the church.
The proposed condominiums would be small – ranging in size from 400 to 650 square feet – and priced for families earning 80% or less of area median income ($79,400 in Miami-Dade County, as of April 2024).
“Having the units of slightly smaller size allows us to provide the affordability,” Buckley told the city’s Housing and Commercial Loan Committee two weeks ago.
All of the condominiums would be offered for sale to individuals and families who meet the income restrictions, at prices ranging from $305,000 to $405,000.
The City Commission agreed to support the project without discussion on Thursday after several community members spoke in favor.
“This project, its sponsors, are people who are constantly engaged in the community. They are known to the community. They are there hot and cold, in good times and bad times,” said Jihad Rashid, a West Grove resident active in community development.
Reynold Martin, the chairman of GRACE, an organization that advocates for fair housing and economic development in the West Grove, also voiced support.
“We like the idea of increasing affordable housing in our community,” he said. “We would encourage you to work closely with some of the churches that have property and would like to use it for this purpose as well. We need housing in our community.”
Other pending projects in the neighborhood include 3710 Grove Landing, a development with 70 apartments priced below market on the southwest corner of Grand Avenue and Douglas Road. Across the street, on the northeast corner, New Urban Development plans to build a mixed-income housing project with 100 or more residential units.
In addition to those two projects, Silver Bluff developers Grant Savage and Peter Gardner have three projects in the works along Grand Avenue, including two residential projects with market-rate apartments – the massive Bimini Block project with more than 170 apartments and the smaller Elemi Phase 2 project with 27 apartments.
In addition, Silver Bluff plans to build a four-story office building on the north side of Grand Avenue with 80,000 square feet of Class A office space.
