A 4.61-acre stretch of South Dixie Highway that once held a blighted retail center could soon become an eight-story building with 328 affordable apartments, under a proposal that would have Miami-Dade's Naranja Lakes Community Redevelopment Agency hand the site to a developer for a nominal amount and add a $7 million loan on top. The project, called Lakeview at Naranja, carries a preliminary budget of $126.4 million.
Housing Trust Group was chosen by the Naranja Lakes CRA to advance the project, according to Connect CRE. Under the proposal, the agency would award the developer land and the $7 million loan if an expected board vote passes, with the site kept affordable for 99 years. As reported by Connect CRE, South Florida governments have increasingly provided land to developers at no cost to create affordable housing, since high land costs are frequently cited as a barrier to building income-restricted units.
The financial terms are notably generous. According to reporting from Macarena Sepúlveda, the $7 million loan carries just a 1% interest rate and would be financed through Tax Increment Financing revenue generated within the redevelopment area — meaning growth in local property taxes gets funneled directly back into the district's housing pipeline. The same reporting identifies the project's architect as Miami-based firm Reprtwar and lays out a two-phase build: 203 units in phase one, followed by 125 units in phase two.
From Blighted Retail Center to Lakefront Housing
The site at 27501 and 27525 South Dixie Highway currently holds a 27,260-square-foot retail center, per Connect CRE's reporting. The Naranja Lakes CRA acquired the combined 4.61 acres for $12.62 million in 2025, and the agency's own annual report shows it followed that purchase by fully demolishing the blighted commercial building at 27501 and making exterior improvements to the adjacent parcel, clearing the way for a shovel-ready site before a developer was even selected.
Lakeview at Naranja would replace that retail footprint with 11,466 square feet of new commercial space, along with $3.3 million in lakefront and pedestrian infrastructure improvements concentrated along the site's western edge, where it borders a lake, the same reporting notes. Housing units would be income-restricted for households earning between 30% and 80% of area median income. Under HUD's Miami-Dade AMI figures effective as of May 1, 2026, that translates to an income cap of roughly $78,300 for a four-person household at 80% AMI, and around $26,050 for a single individual at 30% AMI, according to the North Miami CRA.
An Agency Built From Hurricane Andrew's Aftermath
The Naranja Lakes CRA itself traces back to Hurricane Andrew. The Naranja Lakes Community Redevelopment Agency was established by the Miami-Dade Board of County Commissioners in 2002, a decade after the 1992 storm devastated South Dade, with a mandate to rebuild infrastructure and eliminate blight. Last year, the agency's board approved an updated master plan expanding its redevelopment boundary to roughly 5,039.62 acres and extending its authorized operating lifespan through 2043, giving it a long runway to keep steering land and financing toward projects like this one.
The site sits along the South Dade Transitway, where Miami-Dade County zoning allows densities up to 125 units per acre and heights up to 15 stories to encourage transit-oriented development near the corridor's Bus Rapid Transit route, per a LoopNet listing for the property. That density has made the stretch a magnet for large-scale affordable projects well beyond this one.
Part of a Bigger Wave Along South Dixie
Housing Trust Group already has a track record in the immediate area. The developer partnered last month with former NBA star Alonzo Mourning's AM Affordable Housing to secure $55.4 million in financing — including $7 million in loan and TIF support from the same Naranja Lakes CRA — for Artisan Pointe, a 115-unit affordable project down the street at 26115 South Dixie Highway, according to The Real Deal.
That deal is one piece of a broader surge of affordable and mixed-income housing investment in South Dade. Developer Vestcor broke ground last year on Ambar Station, a $128.5 million, 576-unit mixed-income development in Leisure City/Naranja backed by Miami-Dade Housing Finance Authority bonds, as reported by Florida YIMBY. Pinnacle also landed $41 million for Tropical Crossings, a 110-unit senior community near the Transitway, and Atlantic Pacific Companies has proposed a 364-unit project on school district land in nearby Goulds.
The scale of public investment reflects a stark affordability gap across the county. Local real estate filings cited by ATL Architecture disclose that more than 62% of Miami-Dade households are housing cost-burdened, while Florida offers only 26 affordable and available rental units for every 100 extremely low-income households. That imbalance is part of why agencies like the Naranja Lakes CRA are willing to absorb land costs upfront and write property values down to nominal amounts in exchange for the kind of 99-year affordability covenant attached to this proposal.
What remains unresolved, per Connect CRE's reporting, is the formal CRA board vote needed to execute the land transfer and the 1% TIF loan, along with a detailed construction timeline and whether the project's ground-floor commercial space will draw retail tenants to support the surrounding district.
