East End Capital
With more than 70 galleries and blocks of internationally acclaimed graffiti and murals, Miami’s artsiest neighborhood, Wynwood, is about to get something new: full-time residents. Lots of them.
A new zoning law covering the 50-cityblock district will allow construction of smaller condo and apartment units: 150 units per acre, up from 36 per acre. That’s finally spurring developers — from Miami, New York and South America — to gamble on the once-blighted area, hoping to turn it into Miami’s answer to New York’s Meatpacking District. Need proof? The penthouse at the new 11-unit 250 Wynwood condo sold for more than $1 million this year — a neighborhood record.
“You have a post-Miami boom happening in Wynwood,” agrees Tony Cho, chief executive of Metro 1, a Miami real estate company. East End Capital plans to build an apartment complex on NW 25th Street with units averaging 675 square feet, offering rents under $2,000 a month. Other projects on the books include Sonny Bazbaz’s 242-unit luxury rental building near the popular Panther Coffee, with 20,000 square feet of retail space. It’s expected to be completed in 2018. Goldman Properties is also set to build a mixed-use project with 102 hotel rooms, 54 rental apartments and 50,000 square feet of office space. Developers will deliver an estimated 1,000 to 2,000 apartments over the next three to five years, says Jonathon Yormak, managing principal at East End Capital, which is developing six projects in Wynwood, including one that plans to offer 260 rental apartments by early 2018.
The new zoning law will hold developers in check by restricting building heights to 12 stories and preserving Wynwood’s eclectic, walk-about character. “We don’t want to become Brickell or the Design District,” says Albert Garcia, a longtime business owner in the neighborhood. “This is Wynwood’s renaissance.”
