Cash-strapped Miami-Dade considers $1 lease on 4 acre site

• Tweet
• Sumo

• Tweet

(Continued from previous page)

“If we rent it to the city of Miami for more, they’d have to cut something else,” Barreiro said. Well, last time I checked, he was a county commissioner. Not a city commissioner. He can run for that if he wants to represent their best interest and watch the city of Miami budget.

The resolution states that the city of Miami will be responsible for the maintenance, estimated at $300,000 a year. But is that really a savings? I mean, if we put an empty, vacant building on the market, how would that cost $300,000 a year to maintain?

We know there are other $1-a-year lease agreements. It is common among government entities like the city of Miami — which also leases Parcel B at Museum Park to the county for $1 a year — and the school board. Ladra believes the 99-year lease on the 84 acres to the Dade County Youth Fair is for $1 a year or some other ridiculous amount.

Commissioner Juan Zapata says he sees those way under value leases all the time. “I always find them very curious,” Zapata told Ladra Monday.

“There’s no rhyme or reason to the way we do things,” Zapata said. “We complain we don’t have enough money for police, but we giveaway a lot of things. Here we want to be friendly with the city of Miami, but the city of Miami is not friendly with us, threatening to take back the Parcel B site.”

This particular property on Northwest 30th Avenue could have a commercial value to some real estate developer — and Miami-Dade is chock full of those. Looking at the surrounding area zoning, you could probably build 24 single family homes on that footprint — more, if zoned for townhouses. Twenty-four homes at a low-ball $140,000 a piece — because neighboring homes range in market value from $110,000 to $225,000 — nets a developer $3.6 million. More, if he or she builds really nice homes closer to the $200,000 range. More, if she or he builds townhouses.

What kind of effort was made to find a buyer for this property? What kind of market research was done?

Ladra is still waiting for answers from the administration on this sweetheart deal, and I’ve also asked what other properties are being leased and what the lease agreement is compared to their value.

But, already, it looks like another missed opportunity from here.

Pages: 1 2

  Bruno Barreiro, Miami-Dade budget