Miami Beach readies four city-owned sites for sale

The City of Miami Beach is preparing four city-owned properties for their potential sale to finance various unfunded capital improvement projects.

Two city-owned vacant lots have been removed from the list that included five properties and the North Shore Branch Library, located at 7505 Collins Ave., that could be sold by the city.

An 8,700-square-foot lot at 8100 Hawthorne Ave., which is valued at about $984,000, and a 31,808-square-foot lot on Sunset Drive, which could be worth $5.7 million, are now out of the list of properties to be potentially sold by real estate company CBRE Group.

The library, which is estimated to be valued at $75 million, received approval for a request for proposals and the city is waiting to issue it based on community engagement sessions held by city staff, according to the city’s spokesperson and director of communications.

The other properties are expected to have their offers submitted to the city by CBRE this month, the spokesperson said. These properties include a 15,313-square-foot lot at 226 87th Terrace valued at $4.6 million; a 12,105-square-foot lot on Pine Tree Drive valued at $3.4 million; and a 2,757-square-foot lot on Commerce Street, which could be worth $1.5 million.

Funds from the sales of these properties were considered to fund capital projects such as the 72nd Street Community Complex project in North Miami Beach, a project that includes a 7,500-square-foot library, a 50-meter competition pool and a 25-meter multi-purpose pool, among other amenities, and which had a budget shortfall of $16.1 million, according to the latest estimate.

At a city commission meeting, Jan. 20, Commissioner David Richardson laid out a plan to fund the community complex using allocations from other overfunded projects, revenue from the Seventh Street Parking Garage, funds from resort taxes and other avenues.

Nonetheless, other unfunded city projects need allocations, which a combined $9.5 million from these city-owned properties could help fund.

The city has already received interest from developers and representatives of the private sector and will review their offers, presented by CBRE, to discuss it with the city commission after planning analysis required for the sale of public property, according to the spokesperson.

“The potential funding of other capital projects,” the city spokesperson said, “will be addressed during our budget process this summer.”