County commissioners are being asked to approve transit enhancements at the Coconut Grove Metrorail Station in lieu of road impact fees that would have been paid by Grove Metro Station LLC for a project that is bringing 402 residences in a transit-oriented development.
Approval was on the county commission’s agenda for the Grove Station Project. As part of the project’s lease on county transit land for the firm that is part of Coconut Grove-based Terra, the developers agreed to construct a new bus terminal for the Metrorail station, build a parking garage with 250 dedicated spaces for transit riders, and add pedestrian and bicycle facilities.
Those transit improvements cost more than $8.5 million, commissioners were told in a memo from county Chief Operations Officer Jimmy Morales, and the roadway impact fees that would be used as credits to be applied are more than $4.9 million.
The county intends to use the development to springboard more riders into county transit. The Grove Metrorail station hit its all-time use high in 2013 with 2,300 average weekday riders and 60,000 total monthly, Mr. Morales reported, but use is down now to 1,400 weekdays and 38,000 monthly.
The project is expected to lure more than 900 daily riders aboard, including 300 in rush hours. Those additional riders, the county reasons, will reduce the number of roadway users, reducing the need for the road impact fees from the developers.
Grove Central, which broke ground in 2021, is a multi-use project with a 23-story tower to house the 402 residences, of which 60 are to be workforce housing. The building also has 170,000 square feet of retail space. The Terra website lists as anchor tenants Target, Sprouts, Total Wine, and Five Below.
The legislation seeking to accept the transit construction in lieu of road impact fees is sponsored by area Commissioner Raquel Regalado.
Consultant to the project Kimley Horn told the county transportation department in July that the new bus terminal built by Terra east of Southwest 29th Avenue provides bays for four standard buses plus two articulated buses, whereas the previous terminal had only four standard bus bays. The bus terminal construction cost was estimated at almost $2.8 million.
The parking garage being built at the station provides 250 covered parking spaces for bus and rail users, Kimley Horn wrote, built at a per space cost of $22,048 for a total cost of $5.5 million. Kimley Horn says the large covered concrete pedestrian canopies that Grove Central is building cost $230,000.
Source: Miami Today