20-story office tower due near Miami Design District

A new 20-story building is set to bring office space and commercial uses to a site adjacent to the southwest corner of the Miami Design District.

TIL 3601 Owner LLC is the developer of the project for a site at 3601 N Miami Ave., just north of I-195.

The building is designed with 199,048 square feet of offices, 11,438 square feet of commercial uses, a rooftop restaurant, and 642 parking spaces.

The city’s Urban Development Review Board unanimously recommended approval.

Attorney Brian A. Dombrowski, representing the developer, said the property is almost an acre of currently vacant land with an existing billboard that is to remain.

The property fronts North Miami Avenue on the west and Northeast 36th Street on the south, the property’s principal frontages. The property has a secondary frontage on Northeast Miami Court.

In a letter to the city, Mr. Dombrowski said the site is between the Midtown and Design District neighborhoods.

“The project will be located within walking distance of multiple bus routes and City of Miami Trolley routes, providing access to numerous shopping, dining, and cultural options. The property’s central location allows easy access to retail centers, the Performing Arts Center, and city parks within walking distance,” he wrote.

The letter details several requested waivers to allow:

■Parking within the second layer, above the first story along the principal frontages with an art or glass treatment and UDRB recommendation.

■Parking within the second layer, above the first story along the secondary frontage with an art or glass treatment.

■One commercial loading berth to be substituted for two residential loading berths.

■A 10% decrease in the required garage drive aisle from 23 feet to 22.

■Vehicular entry spacing at less than 60 feet separation.

Mr. Dombrowski told the board the building is designed with one level of basement parking, in an effort to compress the podium.

Ray Fort, with project architect Arquitectonica, said the typical office floor level will be about 20,000 square feet, with varied and integrated sky terraces.

All loading will be internalized, he said.

Board member Ligia Ines Labrada called the project successful and said it has dynamic elevations.

“The outdoor space is great … wonderful,” she said.

Board member Anthony Tzamtzis said, “You have a lot of creativity. Very well done.”

Board member Dean Lewis said, “I love the project. There’s a lot of things between architects that are very pleasurable, conversation … Mendelsohn is meeting streamlined art deco, and the histories and the traditions and articulating, rounding the corners, and sculpting a mass … I also like the spacing of the vertical and horizontal lines varying in floor heights.”

Board member Agustin Barrera said, “I enjoy the softness of the building, the way it reacts to the neighborhood.

“I like the terraces. I personally would want to have an office in a terrace floor because it gives opportunity during the day to get fresh air without having to get in the elevator, go downstairs and go outside. So, I think that’s going to be a great amenity, and the way that they are placed and not all in the same façade,” he said.

“Overall, I think it’s a very elegant project,” said Mr. Barrera.

Board member Robert Behar agreed with his fellow board members, “The building looks great.”

Board Chairman Ignacio Permuy said, “I think you’ve done an exceptional job in the design, in the mass, and in the articulation. And for a 300-plus-foot-high building, I think this is one of the better designs in scaling, in terms of scaling it down, that I’ve seen presented to this board.”