Towering highrise proposed for West Avenue

Rendering of earlier proposed rental/retail at South Shore.

Remember developer Russell Galbut’s plans for 600 Alton Road?

In early 2013, the developer had a series of community meetings for a proposal to use the property — between West Avenue and Alton Road and Fifth and Seventh streets including the old (and abandoned) South Shore Hospital building — as a large rental-retail commercial project.

He got some neighborhood buy in.

In summary, the project called for 60,000 square feet of retail and restaurant uses on the ground floor, 444 apartments, 1,073 parking spaces below ground. A new seven-story building was to be built on the 500 block of Alton Road, and a five-story building on the 600 block. The South Shore Hospital building, 10 stories, would be rehabbed and included.

That was the tallest part of the project.

Fast-forward a year. Tonight, Galbut’s Crescent Heights company is teaming with Jorge Perez’s Related Companies to pitch the neighborhood on a 50-story tower on the site.

Belle Isle Blog believes it would be the tallest building on Miami Beach — or at least the one with the most floors (Green and Blue Diamond have those triangles on top of their 44 floors, rising to 559 feet).

The meeting happens at 6:30 p.m. at the Related South Beach Sales Center, 91 Collins Avenue.

There is a a model of the tower on display from all day today at that center.

The next 600 Alton Road reveal: the traffic plan

Crescent Heights development, which owns the abandoned South Shore Hospital and surrounding properties between Alton Road and West Avenue, has scheduled another session with West Avenue residents — this time to outline  the traffic plans for the proposed apartment/retail complex it calls 600 Alton Road.

The meeting happens Thursday, Feb. 21, at 6 p.m. at the Miami Beach Golf Course clubhouse. The West Avenue Neighborhood Association asks that you RSVP if you plan to attend.

At a meeting in January, Crescent Heights showed a proposal for a sleek complex that included 440 rental apartments above 60,000-square feet of retail space and parking for 1073 cars.

The configuration of the retail at street level included open air walkways under the building, and green space (described as a mini-park) facing Fifth Street. Parking was underground, an interesting challenge given the frequency of street flooding in the area.

There were many questions about traffic impact during that meeting, and Crescent Heights promised to follow up with a session with the traffic plan — and this is it.

Meanwhile, Crescent Heights is scheduled to appear at the Planning Board on Feb. 26 and the Design Review Board on March 5.

Galbut unveils plans to 440-unit apartment-retail project to West Avenue Corridor residents

Crescent Heights presents 600 Alton Road to West Avenue residents.

The project that developer Russell Galbut wants to build to replace the crumbling South Shore Hospital building will house 440 rental apartments above 60,000-square feet of retail space with a swath of green space facing Fifth Street and underground parking for 1073 cars.

Rendering of proposed rental/retail at South Shore.

Known as 600 Alton Road, the sleek glass and silver project would include two main buildings between Fifth to Eighth streets and Alton Road and West Avenue.

There would be 440 apartment units with an average size of 850 square feet — and they would range from one bedrooms to three bedrooms.

An alley running east-west between Alton and West would divide the two main buildings between Sixth and Seventh streets. At the street level, pedestrians would be able to walk corridors under the main buildings to the various retail shops and restaurants.

At a meeting organized by the West Avenue Corridor Neighborhood Association, Crescent Heights project manager Chaim Elkoby said no more than 30 percent of the retail space would be restaurants, and the restaurants on the West Avenue side of the complex would have to close by midnight.

WAVNA posted YouTube videos and photos from the presentation on its Facebook page.

He said he is trying to be sensitive to noise concerns on West Avenue and “we will have residents on our own site to worry about.”

All the parking would be “below grade,” and that means underground. So the city project to renovate Alton Road and add pumping stations for drainage in the Alton-West Corridor is pretty important to the plan.

Elkoby said that if the project moves forward as planned, it will go before the Miami Beach Planning Board, the Design Review Board and then the construction document phase would take four to six months. Based on that scenario, the target is to begin construction in November 2013, and construction would take 24 months “from groundbreaking to opening.”

About 60 residents attended the presentation at the Miami Beach Golf Course. Several had questions about the traffic impact from the project, and were told there could be another meeting with the traffic engineer “in a couple of weeks.”

Amid scandal, rental of city commission chamber, the Miami Beach activists are getting restless

Miami Beach activist Frank Del Vecchio says he is organizing a protest rally in the wake of the city of Miami Beach code enforcement corruption arrests.

And Miami Beach United is calling on city commissioners to reverse their decision to let a private developer — Russell Galbut of Crescent Heights– use the City Commission chambers for presentation on the property he controls at the MacArthur Causeway entrance to Miami Beach (the old South Shore Hospital site on Alton Road), where he’s proposing an outlet mall and residential complex.

You don’t have to look far to see angry residents on Miami Beach, whether they are frustrated over the sluggish construction on the Venetian Causeway to worrying about how the city will handle the upcoming Memorial Day weekend crowds.

When the commission decided to let Crescent Heights use the city commission chambers to present its proposal, letters started firing toward city hall.

Activist Jo Manning fired this missive:

“Since when do third parties — private parties that do not serve the public — get the use of our Commission Chambers for gain and to attract potential investors to their projects?

“…There are public venues a-plenty for such a presentation, if it once again needs to be presented. (Among them, the Botanical Garden, the public library, even the Shelborne Hotel.) Holding this in City Hall gives it tacit approval from the City of Miami Beach, whether or not you argue that it does not.”

Galbut told The Miami Herald the meeting will be used to air different possible uses of the property, one of the largest on South Beach available for development.

But architect Arthur Marcus wrote:

“I am appalled and quite dismayed – to say the least – that you are looking to rent out the City of Miami Beach Commission Chambers to a private developer to promote a private development. This is not at all for the public good as has been argued.  This illegally legitimizes one private development and gives it the ‘perceived’ stamp of government approval.”

And code enforcement corruption arrests–which involve charges that inspectors extorted $25,000 out of a South Beach nightclub owner — prompted four city commissioners to call for a special meeting to vent and discuss possibly fire the city manager.

Four city commissioners have called for a special meeting to discuss the arrests, including two who told The Miami Herald that Gonzalez should resign or be fired.Del Vecchio called for a protest — he says in a letter to commissioners — because the city has been unresponsive to complaints about lax code enforcement. “It took the FBI to uncover the plot,” he says.

The rally is supposed to happen at noon on Thursday, April 26, at City Hall.