Business hotel to rise in Overtown

Construction of a sleek mid-rise hotel catering to the business traveler is expected to begin in Overtown during the first quarter of the new year, according to the developer.

Central District Miami Redevelopment Group V LLC, affiliated with TSG Group, is building a Cambria Hotel at the northeast corner of Northwest 13th Street and Northwest Ninth Avenue, just south of the Dolphin Expressway.

The hotel is to rise on five parcels assembled by the developer at 1313, 1321, 1331 and 1335 NW Ninth Ave. and 851 NW 13th St.

The project is designed at 12 stories and will be home to 192 rooms, with parking levels to accommodate about 105 vehicles.

Sophia Leavell, representing TSG Group, told Miami Today this week that the company is working on the project with plans to break ground early next year.

Ms. Leavell provided this statement from the company: “We have spent the last few months finalizing the details of the project and underwriting the business according to current market conditions and trends. We are still very bullish on Miami as a destination and expect to break ground in Q1 2020.”

TSG Group is a real estate investment and development company based in Miami.

Founded in 2008 with the vision of conceptualizing real estate opportunities through innovative strategies, TSG Group’s core business activities are land banking, development, asset acquisition and asset management, with a focus on the residential, office and hospitality markets.

The firm’s managing partners are Jorge Escobar and Camilo Lopez.

The Cambria Hotel brand is owned by Choice Hotels International, a hospitality company based in Rockville, MD, which offers a range of specialty experiences.

The developer’s team says the Cambria collection emphasizes modern design geared toward business travelers. “As such, the hotel’s amenity program focuses on flexible meeting space, tech capabilities, and upscale lounge areas to serve today’s modern business travelers,” the team said in a letter to the city.

The project earned a positive recommendation from the city’s Urban Development Review Board in December 2018.

Documents filed with the city show the project’s overall size to be 172,729 square feet, with 7,388 square feet of open space, or about 24% of the property, and it is designed to include 621 square feet of office use.

The site is near the city’s Health District, and close to the Culmer Metrorail Station.

The planned hotel is to have a rooftop swimming pool, flexible meeting areas and a bistro dining room, plus a lobby oriented toward a very active street scene.

The ground floor is to be home to the meeting rooms and small restaurant-dining area, and the loading has all been internalized, according to Architect Alberto Cordoves of Corwil Architects.

The owner-developer requested several waivers including up to a 30% reduction in required parking; allow up to a 10% reduction of the minimum access aisle width from 23 to 22 feet; allow the substitution of one commercial loading berth for two residential loading berths; allow parking along a primary frontage to extend into the second layer above the first story; and to allow up to a 10% increase of the maximum building floorplate length.

In a letter about the planned hotel, the developer’s team explained the need and eligibly for the requested waivers.

Miami 21 zoning rules allow a reduction of up to 30% of required parking where the development is within one-half mile of a Transit Oriented Development or TOD area, or one-quarter mile of a Transit Corridor.

“In this instance, the Project is located within one-quarter mile of the Culmer Metrorail Station,” the letter says, and notes that while up to a 30% reduction of required parking may be obtained (a reduction of 36 parking spaces), the developer is seeking a reduction of approximately 15%, or 18 spaces for this project.

The letter adds: “As detailed above, the Cambria Hotel collection is geared largely towards business travelers who arrive to the hotel by taxis, shared ride services (Uber/Lyft), or the Orange Line Metrorail from Miami-Dade International Airport. As such, the Project’s location allows guests to take advantage of the public transportation options right in the neighborhood, while also creating a reduced need for on-site parking.”