Resia has exited the development of the Palmetto Station apartment complex in Medley, with a new group of developers expanding the project to 1,152 units. The new team consists of Jose Gonzalez of GLC Real Estate, Ivan Herrera of Unicapital Asset Management Group, and Alex Lastra of Desarrollo. According to Gonzalez, they assumed control of the workforce housing project at the Palmetto Metrorail station during the second quarter.
The property is located at 7701 Northwest 79th Avenue and is being leased from Miami-Dade County under a 90-year term. In a statement, Resia confirmed it is “no longer involved with this project” and it “transferred the development rights to another developer.” Resia is based in Miami and operates as a subsidiary of MRV, a publicly traded Brazilian homebuilder.
Gonzalez established GLC Real Estate after working for more than 27 years at Florida East Coast Industries. Herrera co-founded UniVista Insurance in 2009 and started Unicapital earlier this year after partially selling UniVista for $700 million. Lastra founded Desarrollo in 2018 following his tenure at Atlantic Pacific Companies.
The revised plans for Palmetto Station include one eight-story building and two twelve-story buildings, featuring 7,000 square feet of office and retail space along with 1,742 parking spaces in both garage and surface lots. Renovations are also planned for the adjacent Palmetto Metrorail stop. These changes were detailed in a recent filing submitted to Miami-Dade County.
Originally, Resia partnered with MagicWaste Youth Foundation on plans that called for four twelve-story buildings with a total of 948 units, as well as more retail space and fewer parking spots. That proposal was approved by county planning officials last year.
While Resia’s original plan qualified under Florida’s Live Local Act incentives for workforce housing projects, Gonzalez said the new development will not use Live Local but will still offer all units as workforce rentals targeted at households earning up to 120 percent of the area median income (AMI). Projects near major transit hubs like Palmetto Metrorail station are permitted higher density under local rules. The current AMI for Miami-Dade is $87,200 according to state housing data.
Gonzalez explained that part of the redesign was prompted by Resia’s intention to use prefabricated kitchens and bathrooms produced at its facility in Georgia—a method recently implemented at its Golden Glades project elsewhere in Miami-Dade County. “We redesigned it into U-shaped buildings with a garage in the middle,” Gonzalez said, noting that Resia had proposed linear buildings.
Construction on Palmetto Station is scheduled to begin next summer.
Residential construction has been increasing in Medley as development expands outward from neighboring Hialeah into what has traditionally been an industrial area.
GLC Real Estate, Unicapital, and Desarrollo also have plans for an affordable housing project on land currently used by Miami-Dade’s overflow animal shelter once a replacement facility opens further south. The three firms are partnering with Miami-Dade County to build a new animal shelter; once completed, they will receive control over the former shelter site for future residential use.
“We redesigned it into U-shaped buildings with a garage in the middle,” Gonzalez said, adding that Resia’s design was for linear buildings.
