Heat legend Udonis Haslem raising his real estate game with $85M housing development

Newly retired Miami Heat star forward Udonis Haslem and real estate partners plan to build a much-needed $85.5 million apartment and townhome complex in North Miami for local workers and other residents who can’t afford the high rents or home prices as the county’s housing affordability crunch lingers.

The development by Miami native Haslem, Magellan Housing and Royal American Construction & Development is slated for the vacant 6.3-acre Rucks Park site, bordering Northeast Sixth Avenue and Northeast 135th Street. It will include 174 rental apartments plus 26 townhouses for sale with price caps to make them affordable for local homebuyers, said Joey Chapman, president of Royal American.

The partners bought the land earlier this month for $1.5 million from the city of North Miami. The project will be divided into two parts and start next summer with the apartments. The intention is to finish the apartments and townhomes by late 2025, although Chapman said there will be space remaining on the property to add more apartments sometime later.

The demand in Miami-Dade for affordable and workforce housing far exceeds supply. The yearslong problem worsened during the pandemic when an influx of wealthy outside buyers and renters relocated to South Florida and drove up apartment rents and housing prices. Many natives and longtime middle-class residents are overburdened with soaring housing costs.

“Demand for affordable housing in Florida is a demand that can’t be met,” Chapman said. “Miami-Dade has always been a good market. The demand down there is the highest in the entire state and it has been that way for decades.”

The apartments will be part of an eight-story building with a business center, community lounge and gym. There will be one-bedroom, two-bedroom and three-bedroom units.

Once completed, apartment rents will be set by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and Miami-Dade based on area median income that year. Affordable housing targets rents for tenants earning 80% of the area’s median income and workforce housing for people making 140% of that median income level. Based on current information, Chapman said he expects the cheapest apartments to be priced between $925 and $1,450 a month. People who earn more and qualify for workforce housing likely will pay between $1,270 and $1,900 monthly.

Each of the 26 townhouses will cover about 1,750 square feet and have three bedrooms and two bathrooms. Price tags will be about $380,000.

The partners next steps are securing financing for construction, finalizing design plans and getting local approvals.

The project represents an example of how affordable and workforce housing can be built together, said Maybelyn Rodríguez Laureano, executive director South Florida Community Development Coalition.

“It’s going to preserve the fabric of the community. It’s going to put a dent in the gentrification and displacement happening across Miami-Dade,” Laureano said. “It’ll help stabilize a lot of families, so they can focus on other priorities and building wealth, like saving for school. It’ll be an economic driver. Once people secure affordable and permanent housing like homeownership, it changes a lot of dynamics for any community.”

The 200 new homes will surely help North Miami, but she said “we really need thousands of units” priced affordably across Miami-Dade.

For that reason, the three partners hope to build more affordable homes in the county after this North Miami project.

Haslem, who played for the Heat his entire 20-year basketball career, also is teaming with Coral Gables-based Magellan on 12-story Wynwood Works that started this summer. The building will have 120 apartments and commercial space on the ground floor when finished. Miami-Dade led financing for the project that’s been in the works since 2019 with a $32 million bond from the Housing Finance Authority. And the city’s Omni Redevelopment Agency gave the developers the half-acre site to build the apartment building on North Miami Avenue.