81-story Brickell Dolce & Gabbana tower advances

Development of an 81-story tower on Brickell Avenue that has been hyped as a condo-hotel with Dolce & Gabbana branding won first-step zoning approval from Miami-Dade County last week by an 11-0 vote. A final review has yet to be scheduled.

Currently on the half-acre site is a seven-story office building built in 1972. This is at least the fourth project that aimed to replace that building.

Now planned by 888 Brickell Owner LLC, according to zoning documents, is a 259-unit mixed-use building with 38,727 square feet of food and beverage spaces, 52,144 square feet for health and fitness, and 273 parking spaces. Total retail space is 120,000 square feet.

Advertising is more colorful, calling the project “America’s first Dolce & Gabbana residences” in the condo and hotel, another of a spate of name-branded projects planned in the community. At 1,049 feet tall it would be the maximum height allowed by aviation guidelines.

The project now is controlled by New York developer Michael Stern, who finally bought the site in April for a reported $61.2 million. He’d had it under option for years as his JDS Development Group planned a Major Food Group-branded project there. The current 888 Brickell project would mark his entry into the hospitality sector.

Earlier plans for the site that did not reach fruition included a mixed-use project that surfaced in 2008 that would offer residences and plans in 2016 by then-building owner Alphatur NV to build a 38-story office tower with ground-floor retail and restaurant uses.

Promotions for the Dolce & Gabbana branding before the property sale in April touted “an on-site tailor and barber,” a Rolls Royce house car, a private residential lobby, a signature restaurant, an indoor padel court, a fitness and wellness center, 5,000 square feet of meeting space, a 3,800-square-foot swimming pool, a theater, a billiards room, and a wine cellar.

The approval last week came with conditions that included public benefits in the form of a transit station contribution, in this case funds for repairs and upgrades of the nearby Tenth Street Metromover Station and vicinity. The documents distributed in advance showed a $450,000 contribution, but attorney Melissa Tapanes, speaking for Mr. Stern, said a new covenant that day had upped the ante to $1.5 million.

She cited benefits for the signalization of the intersection of Tenth Street and South Miami Avenue “along with other transit improvements including wayfinding [signs], pedestrian-friendly amenities up to the county’s discretion as it relates to on-site loading of passenger vehicles for Uber, etc. – they’re all on site.”

Past projects for the site would have come under the zoning rules of the City of Miami prior to the county creating the Metromover subzone into which the current project falls, regardless of the city’s requirements. County zoning caps developments at 500 units per acre and height at the maximum allowed by aviation authorities.