A vacant half-acre lot in Miami's Design District that has sat empty since 2022 is finally getting a second act. Miami Design District Associates and Fort Lauderdale-based BH3 Management have teamed up on a revised version of The Ursa, now planned as a 20-story, roughly 250,000-square-foot Class A office building at 30 Northeast 39th Street, with construction set to begin in 2027 and wrap up in 2029.
The partnership marks a significant retooling of a project that first launched four years ago but never got off the ground. According to Commercial Observer, the original 2022 version of The Ursa called for a smaller, 15-story building with 180,000 square feet of office space, but that iteration failed to land office tenants or secure construction financing, leaving the site vacant ever since. The revised plan is described as a partnership between Craig Robins's Dacra, the LVMH-backed private equity firm L Catterton Real Estate, and BH3, according to the same outlet.
The new footprint also grows the site itself. The revised plan folds in a neighboring 11,417-square-foot parcel along North Miami Avenue that is owned by BH3 Management, Commercial Observer reports — part of what the joint venture describes as an expansion of the original proposal by combining adjacent properties, per Florida YIMBY.
Big Floor Plates and an Arsham-Designed Facade
The Ursa is being designed by Arquitectonica alongside Arsham Studio, and the building is configured to accommodate larger office tenants with floor plates ranging from 18,000 to 20,000 square feet and 14-foot ceilings, per Florida YIMBY. Floors from the seventh level up are expected to offer views of Biscayne Bay and the Miami skyline.
Contemporary artist Daniel Arsham, founder of the architecture and design firm Snarkitecture, oversees the project's art program, which will incorporate installations along the exterior facade and inside the lobby, according to theursa.com. The building is also planned to include ground-floor retail and dining spaces, an amenity deck, fitness facilities, landscaped balconies, and on-site parking, with 15,000 square feet set aside for ground-floor retail, Florida YIMBY reports.
Not every account of the project lines up neatly. BH3's own portfolio page describes The Ursa as rising 19 stories with approximately 236,600 square feet of rentable office space and about 15,800 square feet of rentable high-street retail, while a construction-permitting report from BLDUP pegs hard construction costs at $70 million for 159,892 square feet of office space and lists the address as 30-32 Northeast 29th Street, rather than 30 Northeast 39th Street. The project's development partners have also shifted: earlier materials from theursa.com named Miami Design District Associates as a joint venture of Dacra, L Catterton Real Estate, and Brookfield Properties, while the current plan involves BH3 Management instead.
Executives Pitch an Iconic Addition
Craig Robins said The Ursa can reflect and augment the Miami Design District while adding an iconic structure to the neighborhood, and that the workplace extends the district's connections between design, art, culture, and commerce, according to Florida YIMBY. BH3 co-founder and co-CEO Gregory Freedman said the firm is honored to partner with Robins and Miami Design District Associates, adding that BH3 looks forward to delivering a best-in-class office environment reflecting the district's design, culture, walkability, and energy, per the same report.
BH3 separately markets The Ursa as the submarket's first Class A+ office building, according to its portfolio listing. The tower is also expected to sit across from the planned Fouquet's Miami Hotel and Residences, a David Chipperfield-designed project with interiors by Paris-based RDAI that is expected to include 143 residences and 85 hotel rooms, per Florida YIMBY.
A Busy Moment for Design District Office Space
The Ursa's revival lands amid a broader building boom in the neighborhood. Sweetbird North, an eight-story, roughly 120,000-square-foot mixed-use office and retail project designed by Snøhetta with about 22,500 square feet of ground-floor retail, recently began construction nearby, according to Archinect. Another Design District office development recently broke ground after securing a $125 million construction loan with signed leases from Josh Harris's private equity firm and Atria Health Research, Commercial Observer reports.
The pipeline also includes another Design District proposal. A proposal from a joint venture of Tricap, Integra Investments and Lndmrk Development calls for a 20-story office building with 199,000 square feet of office space sitting atop a six-story, 642-space parking garage, according to Bisnow. Another nearby site is planned to include 312,000 square feet of office space and 671 parking spaces on a 1.5-acre lot, per the same report.
The numbers suggest developers are betting on sustained demand. Miami-Dade County had just under 1.4 million square feet of office space under construction at the end of the third quarter of 2023, Bisnow reports, while the region recorded 588,000 square feet of leasing activity that quarter as vacancy dropped slightly and asking rates climbed 8% compared to the prior year. JLL Research reported that Miami office leasing activity in the first half of 2026 surpassed full-year totals in both 2024 and 2025, according to Florida YIMBY.
