Renderings of City Place Apartments (City of Dania Beach, City Place Apartments, iStock)
Dania Beach Commissioners have approved a site plan and municipal funding for City Place Apartments, an eight-story, multi-family project set aside almost entirely for low-income tenants.
Commissioners voted unanimously Tuesday night to approve the site plan for the 110-unit development near Dania Beach City Hall and to raise a 17-year municipal loan from $640,000 to $1 million. to help fund the project. Commissioners also approved a deal for the developer to lease 10 parking spaces to tenants of City Place Apartments in the adjacent city car park.
“It gives our residents something they badly need,” said Dania Beach Mayor Tamara James. “We often see projects here in the [commission] meetings that we probably couldn’t afford to experience ourselves.
The developer, Miami-based City Place Apartments, Ltd., is managed by Francisco Rojo and Robert Saland, according to state records.
Of the 110 apartments, 100 will offer below-market monthly rents ranging from $430 to $920 for one-bedroom units and $500 to $1,100 for two-bedroom units, said Dennis Mele, attorney for the developer. .
The remaining 10 apartments will have market-rate monthly rents of $1,450 for one-bedroom apartments and $1,750 for two-bedroom apartments, he said.
The developer will reserve 83 of the apartments for tenants who have between 60% and 80% of the region’s median income and 17 apartments for tenants not exceeding 30% of the region’s median income. For a three-person household, 60% of the region’s median income is $47,000 per year and 30% is $23,760 per year, Mele said.
One-bedroom apartments will span 752 square feet and 904 square feet for two-bedroom units, he said. The eight-story building will also have 2,500 square feet of retail space.
Palmier Investments LLC currently owns the five parcels that make up the 1.24 acre development site, now occupied by homes and a commercial building. Palmier paid a total of $2.1 million to put the site together in a series of transactions in May and June 2016 and December 2017, property records show.
The development site at the northeast corner of Southwest First Street and Southwest Third Avenue in Dania Beach is zoned City Center, (CC) and its land use designation is Regional Activity Center (RAC).
Among other waivers, commissioners approved a design with a building length of 361ft 8in, well over the 150ft limit, allowing the developer to construct one building instead of two with the same number of units. Commissioners also gave the go-ahead to variations in design standards for upper-floor setbacks, landscaping and the facade.
Similarly, 154 parking spaces were required by zoning, but city commissioners approved 144 for City Place Apartments, as the developer will lease 10 spaces in the city’s nearby parking garage for $5,400 per year.
The developer secured financing for City Place Apartments from the Florida Housing Finance Corporation and applied for funding from a Broward County program that encourages affordable residential developments, City Manager Ana M. Garcia said. “By increasing our loan from $640,000 to $1 million, it positions them better for the Broward County loan,” she said.
The terms of such state or county funding require that 100 of City Place Apartments’ 110 units remain affordable to low-income renters for 50 years, Mele said.
