The Allen Morris Company and Black Salmon Unveil $1 Billion Highland Park Miami Project Expanding Miami's Medical District

Miami’s unprecedented growth has transcended major global destinations, sparking increased need and demand for economic drivers, including healthcare, to support the evolving City’s infrastructure. To further solidify the metropolitan’s top position as the second largest health district in the U.S., the partnership of Miami-based national commercial real estate investment firm Black Salmon and The Allen Morris Company, one of the largest diversified real estate firms in the southeast, unveiled plans to develop Highland Park Miami. The $1 billion mixed-use project will span 7 acres and increase the footprint of the Miami Medical District by approximately 10%.

As a highly anticipated project, Highland Park Miami will begin preliminary site clearing later this year. The visionary team behind the multi-phased development has been conceptualizing and planning Highland Park Miami for the past decade, visiting major medical hubs in the United States, including Houston and Rochester’s renowned Mayo Clinic Health District, to glean further understanding of the requirements for such a vast and important project.

“We gratefully thank our partners as we announce Highland Park Miami, one of Miami’s most impactful developments seen in many years. This iconic project will be the heartbeat of the growing global metropolis, elevating its status as a premier health destination by adding state-of-the-art medical offices to support demand and new offerings for healthcare professionals in a strategically designed and thoughtful setting,” said Camilo Lopez, Co-CEO and Managing Partner of Black Salmon. “We look forward to job creation, expansion of critical offerings, and uniting an area with more resources for working professionals, patients, and the greater community as we usher in a new era for the local economy.”

Highland Park Miami will rise at the crossroads of health and business. The multi-block, mixed-use development will house medical and related office uses in an urban setting that includes hotels, apartment buildings, supporting retail, food and beverage uses, and green space. The project is master planned and designed by the globally recognized architecture firm Arquitectonica.

“This is a one-of-a-kind project in the health space as it integrates all the familiar uses found in daily urban life with the healthcare component, creating a convivial environment for its users and the surrounding community,” said Bernardo Fort-Brescia, Design Principal at Arquitectonica. “In addition, it sits in a highly visible location on Miami’s most important east-west corridor along I-95 and equally important across from Jackson Memorial Hospital/University of Miami Health complex. Its graphically powerful design and the sheer scale will announce the importance of this new neighborhood.”

Abutting the Medical District, Highland Park Miami’s transformation from an underutilized area into a walkable, beautifully landscaped lifestyle community that promotes health and wellness was artfully constructed by Naturalficial, a Miami-based landscape architecture and design practice. It will feature 1,000 residential units crafted by Oppenheim Architecture, a 150-room hotel keys, and 500,000 square feet of medical-related office space weaving through open walkways and greenery to emphasize connectivity as a design cornerstone.

“With Highland Park, we’re creating a new center of gravity for the Medical District, with curated wellness-oriented retail and restaurants, world-class architecture, and best-in-class medical office and residential offerings. The project will create a destination for the thousands of patients and employees at Jackson Memorial Hospital, the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, the Miami VA Healthcare System, as well as the larger Medical District ecosystem,” said W. A. Spencer Morris, President of Allen Morris Company. “We are proud to be part of this transformational project, which will further establish Miami as one of the most important medical hubs.”

Highland Park Miami will be located at 800 NW 14th Street, between the booming Miami River and the key east-west transit artery Florida State Road 836, which leads directly to the international airport and nearly every major destination in the City’s core. It will also draw substantial density as a transit-oriented development (TOD), just 400 feet from a Metrorail station.

Renderings via Arquitectonica

Construction on Mixed-Use River Landing Shops and Residences To Begin By End-Of-Year

Construction on River Landing Shops and Residences is set to begin by the end of the year (2017) in Miami's Health District. Foundation work began earlier this year at the 8.14-acre site on the Miami River located at 1400 NW River Drive. River Landing Shops and Residences will include 475 apartment units and 426,000 SF of retail and restaurant space. Balfour Beaty PLC won a $260 million contract to build the project which is being developed by H&R REIT, Urbanx Co. and Matthews Southwest; who reached a settlement with Andrew Hellinger's River Landing Development which originally purchased the land in 2014 for $26 million before taking a $38.2 million mortgage on the property from an affiliate of New York-based Northstar Realty Finance, Eastwatch Holdings T LLC. Eastwatch Holdings T LLC. filed a $38.19 million foreclosure lawsuit against River Landing Development to which the mortgage was sold to River Landing Acquisitions, an affiliate of Canada-based retail developer H&R REIT. Major tenants will include a Publix, TJ Maxx, West Marine, At&T, Burlington Coat Factory, and an AMC Theater, amongst others. Completion is expected in Fall of 2019.