Miami’s Medical District is expected to get a $1 billion infusion that brings together residential, commercial and retail space along with a hotel, representing a 10% expansion of the country's second-largest medical district.
Commercial real estate investment firm Black Salmon, alongside partner Allen Morris Co., announced plans to develop Highland Park Miami across 7 acres between the Miami River and Florida State Road 836.
Plans for the mixed-use project include 1,000 residential units, 150 hotel rooms, 500,000 square feet of medical-related office space and open walkways and greenspace. The project is being designed by Miami-based architecture firm Arquitectonica, with landscaping by Naturalficial and residential units by Oppenheim Architecture. Preliminary site clearing is set to begin later this year.
“This iconic project will be the heartbeat of the growing global metropolis, elevating its status as a premier health destination by adding state-of-the-art medical offices to support demand and new offerings for healthcare professionals in a strategically designed and thoughtful setting,” said Camilo Lopez, co-CEO and managing partner of Black Salmon, in a statement.
Plans for the project were a decade in the making, with the development team visiting other major medical hubs across the country, including the Texas Medical Center in Houston and The Mayo Clinic Health District in Rochester, Minnesota, for inspiration, according to the statement.
A spokesperson for the development team said the project is 100% equity financed to date. Moving forward, the multiphase project will be funded as “traditionally financed, through institutional investor involvement,” the spokesperson said. No tenants have been announced.
Highland Park will be located at 800 NW 14 St., a less-than-five-minute walk from the Culmer Metrorail station and about 10 minutes from the Civic Center Metrorail station, qualifying it for transit-oriented development status.
“It sits in a highly visible location on Miami’s most important east-west corridor along I-95 and equally important across from Jackson Memorial Hospital/University of Miami Health complex," said Bernardo Fort-Brescia, design principal at Arquitectonica.
Alongside Allapattah, Overtown and Wynwood to the east and up the Miami River, the Medical District has, in recent years, started to see increased attention from developers moving beyond Miami’s urban core in Brickell and downtown. Other projects recently announced or completed along the river include the hospitality-focused Riverside Wharf, located just outside of the immediate downtown area and MidRiverVu, a 28-floor 475-unit apartment complex that will connect to the River Landing Shops and Residences, built in 2020.
“With Highland Park, we’re creating a new center of gravity for the Medical District, with curated wellness-oriented retail and restaurants, world-class architecture, and best-in-class medical office and residential offerings. The project will create a destination for the thousands of patients and employees at Jackson Memorial Hospital, the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, the Miami VA Healthcare System, as well as the larger Medical District ecosystem,” said W. A. Spencer Morris, president of Allen Morris Co., in the statement.
The Medical District lies between Allapattah to the northwest and Overtown to the southeast. The Midtown Interchange connects Florida State Road 836 and Interstate 95 and serves as the district's southern boundary, with Little Havana farther south. Jackson Memorial Hospital anchors the district alongside the University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine and the Miami-Dade College Medical Campus, with a number of medical and biotech firms located in the vicinity.
