Perfect Game
Commission OK’s Site Plan That Includes 16-Story Hotel and Bowling Alley

“It would appear to me … that this would be the highest structure in the whole area.”

By Evan Berkowitz

Last week, the Aventura City Commission passed a resolution clearing the way for a large mixed-use project called City Place at Aventura.

Located on the south side of Northeast 207th Street between Northeast 29th Avenue and Northeast 30th Avenue, the project, to be designed by Bernardo Fort-Brescia of Arquitectonica, will include a four-star hotel and the city’s first-ever bowling alley. The resolution, approved Nov. 8, granted conditional use approval to permit 16 stories and 180 feet in height for the hotel portion of the project — this in a B2, community business district, which allows only 12 stories and 120 feet in height by code.

The resolution also granted approval for indoor commercial recreation use consisting of a bowling alley with limitations on the times it can serve alcohol. Moreover, the resolution granted an extended time limit, three years, from the date of site plan approval for the developers to obtain a building permit. City guidelines stipulate that developers have 12 months to get a building permit after site plan approval.

According to an Oct. 26 memorandum from the city’s Community Development Department, Aventura Land Trust, LLC and Aventura Land Trust 2, LLC, owned by Yizhak Toledano, submitted an application for administrative site plan approval to develop part of their 7.391-acre site. The eastern portion of the site will have 36 three-level townhomes and a 68-unit, seven-level, mid-rise building that also contains townhomes and loft apartments. The commercial development on the western portion of the site will consist of the hotel; an eight-level, 90-foot-tall parking garage; and an eight-level, 120-foot-tall office building. The hotel, office building and garage will contain ground-level retail, recreational and restaurant uses along a landscaped main street. The mid-rise building in the residential portion was designed around the garage to screen the parking facility from the residential area. Landscaped open space fronting on Northeast 207th Street will be maintained by the owners and will include benches, walkway and fountain, according to Community Development Department memo.

Toledano told the commission he paid almost $35 million for the land, and the project would cost approximately $230 million-$240 million to build. He said his lender for the project is Merrill Lynch.

Planning Director Joanne Carr recommended approving the applicant’s three requests, but only allowed them three years to obtain a building permit instead of the five years they initially asked for. She said the hotel was required to be an upscale four-diamond or four-star-type facility. The 18-lane bowling alley, planned to be within a 23,130-square-foot commercial/retail space on the first level of the parking garage, must also be an upscale place “similar in design to the themed bowling alleys in the Lincoln Road area in the city of Miami Beach and in the Dolphin Mall, with high-tech video screens and gourmet foods,” stated a city memo.

Commissioner Bob Diamond expressed concern over the height of the hotel and said he did not think the neighborhood was a good place for a bowling alley. To the south of the site is the Aventura Turnberry Jewish Center, to the west is the Promenade Shops Plaza, to the north is the residential Aventura Lakes subdivision and on the east is Villa Dorada Condominiums. “It would appear to me … that this would be the highest structure in the whole area,” he said.

Carr said the developers would be mitigating the visual impact of the tall building, and that the hotel was being placed as far west as possible from the residential area and as far north as possible from the synagogue. Commissioner Zev Auerbach said he was concerned about problems arising from serving alcohol at the bowling alley’s outside dining area during school hours.

Stanley Price, Aventura Land Trust’s attorney, said that the developers agreed to erecting residential-use buildings on the eastern side of the site, rather than placing commercial-uses there, to better accommodate and buffer the already existing residential elements in that neighborhood. In addition, Price said Aventura Land Trust had devised a traffic plan that, by using separate entrances, would keep all commercial traffic off Northeast 30th Avenue. “There is no cross traffic whatsoever between the residential component and the commercial component,” he said. Price said they were asked to build a “mini Mizner Park,” with a roadway, which would bisect the retail component of the project.

In regard to the hotel’s height, Price said that a high-end, four-star establishment would require certain amenities. “In order to get appropriate financing for that type of facility, you need certain basics,” he said. These include a ballroom, a spa or gym, a pool and a minimum number of planned rooms (the hotel is slated to have 198). He also said it was necessary for the hotel to be visible from a major roadway, in this case Biscayne Boulevard, and noted that the hospital building across the street was of a similar height.

Diamond was not convinced of the necessity of the requested hotel’s height. “Something can be done to accomplish all the things you have here, but not at 16 stories,” he said. Price answered that the 35 percent open space requirement that Aventura city code demands makes lowering the structure difficult. In regard to the building-permit time frame, the lawyer said it was “impossible” to build a development of this type in one year, and that four or five years are likely needed, although the suggested three years was acceptable to them.

Auerbach was against the bowling alley. He said he did not see the city as a tourist/leisure-type place like Miami Beach, and did not want to see “night life” brought to the area. “I don’t see the benefit to the community,” he said. Auerbach also opined that serving alcohol so close to local schools was not a smart idea. Diamond agreed, saying the bowling alley was “inappropriate for the area.”

Mayor Susan Gottlieb and Commissioner Luz Weinberg both said they had gone to the Lucky Strike Lanes in Miami Beach, the establishment that the Aventura bowling alley was said to be modeled on, and found it to be upscale and very “kids-friendly.” Price said the Aventura Police Department made inquiries about Lucky Strike and did not find it to be a trouble site.

The commission decided not to allow alcohol to be served in the establishment’s outdoor area, and to restrict alcohol sales overall to after 6 p.m. Monday through Friday. The bowling alley component was approved 5-2, with Auerbach and Diamond voting no.

The height of the hotel of City Place at Aventura was approved by a vote of 6-1, with Diamond dissenting.

Gottlieb noted that the recent changes to the city’s land development regulations and the neighborhood’s new zoning kept the height of the hotel structure down. “This could have been 20 stories before we did the new LDR,” she said.

The three-year time extension for the building permit passed unanimously.

Finally, the formal resolution on the agenda, which included all three elements, passed 5-2, with Auerbach and Diamond dissenting.

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