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Week of October 26, 2006 |
| Mixed-use towers to replace Civic Center Day's Inn By Catherine LacknerTwo 25-story towers comprising about 391,000 square feet for offices, 15,000 square feet for retail and 430 hotel rooms are set to rise on 3.26 acres at 1050 NW 14th St. in Miami's Civic Center, replacing a vintage Day's Inn motel. The towers will be connected by an 837-space garage facing State Road 836. The City of Miami Planning & Zoning Board last week unanimously granted Miami Hotel Investments Ltd. a major use special permit to build Civica Towers near the University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Hospital Medical Center. The project still requires approval from the Miami City Commission, but no zoning changes are necessary. It is anticipated the commission will hear the application in November or December. Sam and Judah Burstyn, along with Jordan Najjar, principals of Miami Hotel Investments, decided to build in the midst of the sprawling governmental complex on the Miami River west of downtown Miami "because the Civic Center lacks a lot of basic infrastructure," said spokesman Seth Gordon. "There's a huge unmet need for private office space that is compatible with the government and hospital uses in the area," he said. "The health complex is a huge business enterprise." The developers will market the space to doctors and medical offices, but there is need for other businesses, too, Mr. Gordon said. State courts and county jails are in the Civic Center, as are the federal Veteran's Hospital, offices of philanthropic groups, research facilities, the main campus of the University of Miami Medical School, the Miami-Dade College Medical Center and other educational institutions. Not only do international travelers seek to stay near the Jackson medical complex when relatives are being treated there, Mr. Gordon said, but "there are business travelers, people in the medical sales field, people who need to be near either the hospitals or the governmental facilities. "There have often been modest hotels in that area, but the developers feel that there is also room in that marketplace for a more upscale hotel, and that is what they intend to include in their project." |
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