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Michael Swerdlow, the Miami-based developer behind the Dolphin Mall, is lobbying Miami-Dade County to purchase a vacant 17-acre tract off SW 190th Street, north of where US1 meets Florida’s Turnpike.
Swerdlow’s plan is to develop the West Perrine property for a Costco warehouse store. The plan has been met with both support and some resistance.
Commissioner Kionne McGhee is pushing the proposal to sell land that the county’s Water and Sewer Department (WASD) purchased almost two decades ago but has let sit idle all this time. WASD is planning to construct a facility to store pipes and service its fleet of vehicles, but has been in the process of planning since the county first purchased the property. The property so far has had zero impact on the economy of South Miami-Dade County.
What Swerdlow is planning, however, will be like a jolt of cafecito, awakening a financial giant.
You want numbers? Here you go.
A Costco of the size anticipated will create 438 jobs. And Costco isn’t an employer who pays its workers minimum wage. The annual payroll for those 438 jobs will be $8,534,700 a year, or an average of $19,485 per employee, not including benefits. And putting those wages and the benefits paid to the employees through the economy produces a benefit of over $15 million to the local GDP in the first year and more than $179 million over a 10-year period.
Once developed and opened, the property would generate over $421,000 in county and school district ad valorem taxes per year and over $4 million during its first 10 years of life. Likewise, in its first year of operation, the location would produce $1.6 million in state and county sales taxes and more than $19 million in its first decade.
And just as important, it will place jobs in South Miami-Dade County that will be filled by people who already reside there, will attract new residents, or will bring commuters south when everybody else is heading north.
So why isn’t this already a done deal?
The biggest stumbling block is that an independent appraisal of the property pegs the value at $31 million, while Swerdlow would pay $8 million up front and another $1 million over 10 years. He would be getting a deal, there is no question about that. But this piece of land is not generating property taxes. It’s not generating sales taxes. It’s not creating the one thing that South Miami-Dade is in desperate need of — jobs.
I reached out to the Mayor’s Office to see where Mayor Daniella Levine Cava stands on this issue. Her spokesperson, Natalia Jaramillo, got back to me by saying, “We are continuing to work with the developer and the commission in hopes of finding suitable property for this project, which will help create jobs and drive economic growth in the South Dade community. The property under consideration is in the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) footprint and is needed to protect the Everglades and transmit fresh water to the Bay – part of our critical efforts to protect and preserve our clean water – and the price offered is significantly under value.
“Further, the terms of the WASD bond covenant create restrictions on how we can utilize WASD property and we are also exploring other possible legal hurdles. Given the importance of this property, we need to identify a real alternative before we can feel comfortable giving up the parcel, we hope the county can overcome these hurdles. Given the importance of this property, we need to identify a real alternative before we can feel comfortable giving up the parcel.”
I hope the county can overcome these hurdles. As it sits, the property is sitting fallow, costing the county money to maintain and protect it. Accepting Swerdlow’s proposal is the kind of a kick in the rear that the South Miami-Dade economy needs.
If you have any questions or comments, reach out to Grant Miller at grant@cnews.net or call me at 305-323-8206.
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