Biscayne Landing

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Renderings of Biscayne Landing

Biscayne Landing is a 193-acre master-planned community on the site of the former superfund site Munisport Landfill.

1 Location
2 Ammenities
3 Local Attractions
4 Development
5 Public/Private Partnership
6 Environmental Background
7 Other Information
8 External links

[edit] Location

Biscayne Landing is located in the heart of a 2,000-acre enclave on Biscayne Bay that borders the Oleta River State Park, Florida’s largest urban park, in the City of North Miami.

[edit] Ammenities

The mixed-use commercial/hotel/residential community will feature 6,000 residences, which include ocean-view luxury towers, mid-rise villas by the park, modern lofts and lakeside townhomes, and more than 400,000 square feet of commercial space, including a major hotel and health club, plus a variety of offices and street-level retail/restaurants.

[edit] Local Attractions

A portion of Biscayne Landing will include some of the wetlands of Biscayne Bay, which will be preserved in the form of a 72-acre environmental park containing nature hikes, jogging paths, information plaques that describe the resident wildlife and trees, benches, a canoe landing and a boat house. It will also have connecting trails to Oleta River State Park.

Biscayne Landing will be near a 230-acre nature preserve, a new kindergarten through eighth-grade county school, the planned new Janet Reno High School, the Biscayne Bay Campus of Florida International University, a Florida fish and wildlife station and the city’s athletic stadium.

[edit] Development

The first two residential towers will be completed by the spring of 2007. Biscayne Landing is developed by Boca Developers. The architecture design firm responsible for the design is Ehrenkrantz Eckstut & Kuhn (EE&K) Architects.

[edit] Public/Private Partnership

Biscayne Landing is the result of a partnership between the City of North Miami and Boca Developers. The city has leased the former dump to Boca Developers for two hundred years. As part of the partnership agreement with the city, Boca Developers will match the construction of new residences at Biscayne Landing with an equal number of new or rehabilitated affordable housing units within the city. In addition, Boca Developers has also committed up to $25 million toward the renovation and expansion of North Miami's library and the construction of an Olympic training facility.

In addition, Boca Developers worked closely with the city to create a Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA). Biscayne Landing will serve as the engine that drives the new CRA’s efforts to revitalize the city through the redevelopment of its housing stock and the enhancement of its infrastructure and municipal facilities. The project will provide tens of millions of dollars in tax revenues to the CRA to fund these initiatives.

In order to begin the work to create new affordable housing in the city, Boca Developers has partnered with Otis Pitts, a former deputy assistant secretary for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), to establish North Miami Housing Ltd. Under Pitts’ guidance and oversight, this enterprise will work with the city to identify and create opportunities for new or rehabilitated affordable housing in the city. Boca Developers has already funded more than $2 million for the affordable housing enterprise, and it recently signed an agreement with the City of North Miami CRA to develop the first affordable housing project – a 136-unit condominium project named Pioneer Gardens which is scheduled to begin construction in April.

[edit] Environmental Background

Biscayne Landing’s environmental standing is described as "brownfield," which the government defines as property for which the expansion, redevelopment or reuse may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of contaminants. For several years, a portion of the property included a permitted site for construction waste, although there are issues of illegal dumping in this area (see the article on Munisport Landfill for further information). The site has undergone several studies since the 1980s by the EPA and other agencies, and all of the studies performed have concluded that it poses no threat to human health or habitation. The studies also concluded that ammonia in the groundwater at the site potentially represented a threat to the environmentally sensitive mangrove preserve, but did not threaten public health or welfare. There have been accusations by nearby residents that the studies performed to date were not thorough enough to rule out potential health threats of contaminents on the site. ^[1]

[edit] Other Information

Biscayne Landing is a member of the Florida Green Building Coalition, a nonprofit corporation whose stated mission is to providing a statewide Green Building program with environmental and economic benefits.