Aligned Real Estate Holdings has been rebuffed once again.
The real estate development company submitted a revised proposal for a massive logistics center in South Dade — cutting its footprint in half — in an effort to secure necessary approvals from Miami-Dade officials that it’s been seeking for two years.
However, Miami-Dade commissioners vetoed an approval to expand the county’s urban development border (UDB) in a board meeting Thursday. The expansion is necessary for Aligned’s plans. Instead, the commissioners gave the real estate firm a third chance to resubmit a proposal that could be accepted by the board and the public.
Aligned initially proposed the South Dade Logistics and Technology District back in 2020. At the time, the plan was to develop an industrial park on almost 800 acres of farmland in South Dade, along the Florida Turnpike and east of a mangrove preserve along Biscayne Bay. To complete the park, it would be necessary for officials to approve an expansion of the UDB to make space for a complex of that size.
Environmentalists and residents are critical of the plan, afraid of its effects on the fragile Biscayne Bay ecosystem and the local quality of life. Aligned has argued that it would stimulate the area’s economy, and that it needed the full size because scale is an important component of a successful logistics center. A final vote on the matter has been delayed several times given its ramifications for the area.
Prior to Thursday, Aligned agreed to decrease the footprint by 52 percent, down to 379 acres instead of 793, according to documents shared with CO. The frontage along the Florida Turnpike — access to which is a necessary component for the logistics center — would remain the same, but the district won’t stretch back as far as it would have previously. The new footprint is also within half a mile of the existing UDB, per the documents.
While Aligned did not receive enough votes to move ahead with the current plan, one commissioner moved to revisit the plan with 85 fewer acres in next month’s hearing, which the board agreed to do.
Chava Gourarie can be reached at cgourarie@commercialobserver.com.
