A long-planned overhaul of some of West Perrine’s oldest public housing just moved from paperwork to dirt work, as Atlantic Pacific Companies broke ground Wednesday on a 101-unit affordable housing project on Miami-Dade County land. The new building is part of a multi-year push to modernize the Perrine Gardens and Perrine Village complexes, replacing a chunk of aging public housing while adding new workforce and affordable apartments. The ceremonial event followed a string of county approvals that cleared the way for construction to start.
The 101-unit complex will rise on county-owned land under a long-term lease, marking the next chapter in the broader West Perrine redevelopment, according to South Florida Business Journal.
Miami-Dade County records show the Board of County Commissioners signed off on a 99-year ground lease with Perrine Apartments Ltd., an affiliate of Atlantic Pacific, as part of a Rental Assistance Demonstration conversion. A county memo estimates the lease and related agreements will bring in about $17,011,920 for the county, including a $1,010,000 lump-sum ground-lease payment plus a share of future cash flow and developer-fee proceeds to support the redevelopment, according to Miami-Dade County.
The current phase will cover roughly 3.2 acres at Perrine Gardens in the West Perrine neighborhood and will replace 50 existing public-housing units, with the remaining apartments reserved as affordable and workforce housing. It is the third phase of Atlantic Pacific’s multi-stage overhaul of Perrine Gardens and Perrine Village, following earlier phases that delivered several hundred units, according to The Real Deal.
Community amenities and resident protections
County staff say the new building is not just about unit counts. Plans call for a business center and computer lab, a multipurpose community room, fitness center, game room, curated art in common areas, bicycle racks with a repair station, on-site management and an emergency generator. The site will also include parking, with designated electric vehicle spaces, a security gate booth equipped with license-plate-recognition cameras, and open green areas. Housing and Community Development has already held multiple community meetings and expects more outreach as the financing closes, per Miami-Dade County.
Why this matters
The redevelopment is being carried out under HUD’s Rental Assistance Demonstration program, known as RAD, which lets public-housing agencies convert aging public housing properties to project-based Section 8 contracts so they can tap tax credits, state loans and private capital while preserving resident rights and one-for-one unit replacement. HUD describes RAD as a tool to preserve affordable housing and protect residents’ rights, and local reporting has highlighted how central RAD has become to Miami-Dade’s recent public-housing redevelopments; see HUD for background.
What’s next
With the ceremonial groundbreaking done, the project now heads into the financing, permitting and HUD sign-off phase before anyone can move in. The developer and county still need to wrap up remaining approvals and additional community meetings as the job advances toward full construction in the coming months, and the ground-lease terms include future revenue sharing that is expected to benefit the county, according to South Florida Business Journal.
