FYI Miami: June 14, 2018

Below are some of the FYIs in this week’s edition. The entire content of this week’s FYIs and Insider sections is available by subscription only. To subscribe click here

JACKSON EXPANDS IN GABLES: Jackson Health System plans to build a new 9,000-square-foot urgent care facility on the site of a vacant gym and adjacent parking lot at 3737 SW Eighth St. in Coral Gables. The Public Health Trust, which controls Jackson, plans to buy the site for $8.4 million with the total capital cost of the project, including acquisition, construction and equipment, estimated at $17.66 million. The ground floor of the new building is to be an urgent care center, with a primary care clinic on the second floor. Miami-Dade commissioners last week approved the purchase of the site from Mozes Office LLC and Mozes Consolidated Properties LLC. The commission action, which was not reviewed by a committee beforehand, said that the new site is part of “Jackson Health System’s strategic plan to expand its ambulatory care network throughout Miami-Dade County.” A memo from health trust Chairman Joe Arriola says Jackson’s strategic vision calls “for the expansion of Jackson’s footprint into communities that currently lack sufficient healthcare services in general and access to Jackson programs specifically.”
SILENCE ON TRANSIT HUB: Details about county negotiations to create a transit-oriented complex are unavailable, as the project has fallen under the “Cone of Silence” ordinance, a spokesperson for the county and mayor’s office wrote Tuesday. The site at Northwest 27th Avenue and 215th Street has been studied for an extension of Metrorail or an expansion of the bus service on Northwest 27th Avenue from the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. station northward, with a transit hub, a park-and-ride facility and a six-story hotel as an anchor. The county has been in talks with Miami Gardens Transit Village LLC about such a development, but things hit a snag last August when troubling site conditions, including subsurface soil contaminants, delayed progress. Responding to an inquiry this week, Transportation and Public Works PIO Karla Damian told Miami Today that while no completion date has been set and no staff could comment, the county is still contributing $5 million in grants toward construction of its transit hub portion once the project begins.
BEACH GROUND LEASES STALL: A 2017 invitation by the Wolfsonian-FIU to negotiate for the ground leases of two of its Miami Beach properties – The Annex, 1538 Lennox Ave., and a nearby surface lot at 1500 Lennox Ave. – has stalled after missing its April 5 deadline to accept proposals and is still in the process of working things out, says Meg Floryan, a museum spokesperson. “We’re still in the [invitation to negotiate] process,” she said. Asked to comment on reasons behind the delay, the museum declined.