Coral Gables Gives Final Approval to 30-Year University of Miami Deal Allowing Hospital, More Students

The Coral Gables City Commission has unanimously given final approval to a 30-year development agreement with the University of Miami that allows the private university to grow its enrollment ceiling from about 13,000 to 17,500 students, build a hospital of up to 100 beds on its Coral Gables campus and hand the city a 5.5-acre parcel for a new public park. The second-reading vote came Tuesday, Sept. 29, at a marathon meeting that also exposed a feud between Mayor Vince Lago and Commissioner Melissa Castro over Lago's professional ties to the university.

The agreement replaces the framework that has governed growth at the campus for years and sets the rules for how one of Florida's largest private universities can build in one of Miami-Dade County's most tightly regulated cities through the mid-2050s.

What the agreement allows

The package included the development agreement itself and four related comprehensive plan and zoning amendments. Its main terms, as described by Miami Today and the Coral Gables Gazette, include:

• An enrollment mitigation threshold that rises from 13,000 to 17,500 students
• Hospital use of up to 100 beds within the campus Multi-Use Area
• Conveyance of the roughly 5.5-acre Lee Lincoln property to the city as a public park, to be known as Centennial Park
• A revised payment schedule in which the university's annual payment to the city rises 4 percent each year
• Transfer of 70 city-managed metered parking spaces to the university
• Expanded campus boundaries along Ponce de Leon Boulevard and larger retail allowances within campus development zones

The Gazette reported that the package replaces the campus's existing 6.8 million-square-foot development cap with a floor area ratio of 1.0, which would allow roughly 10.5 million square feet of buildings. The extra room is meant to accommodate future academic, research, medical and housing projects, as well as athletics facilities, over the three-decade life of the deal.

A hospital in the Gables

The hospital provision is the most significant change for the surrounding neighborhoods. University of Miami Health System already runs the Lennar Foundation Medical Center on the Coral Gables campus, but it is an outpatient facility. The new agreement would allow a full-service inpatient hospital of up to 100 beds, which Miami Today reported would mark a major expansion of the university's health care footprint beyond the outpatient center.

No construction timeline for a hospital has been announced. Any building would still need site plan review under the city's process.

The park and the payments

For the city, the headline benefit is the Lee Lincoln parcel. The nearly 6-acre property is valued at about $50 million, according to the Miami Herald, and Lago has pursued a park on the site for more than a decade. Under the agreement, it becomes city property as Centennial Park.

The 4 percent annual escalator means the university's payments to the city grow every year of the agreement as the campus grows. The higher enrollment figure is a mitigation threshold, the level at which the university's obligations to offset its impact on the surrounding city are measured. The Herald reported that the agreement also allows the university to expand student housing on campus.

How the votes went

The commission first approved the package 4-0 on Aug. 25, with Lago, Vice Mayor Rhonda Anderson and Commissioners Castro and Richard Lara voting yes on all five ordinances. Commissioner Ariel Fernandez was absent from that discussion and vote, the Gazette reported. At the Sept. 29 second reading, commissioners approved the deal unanimously, including Castro, according to the Herald.

The timeline of the approval:

The ethics fight over Lago's UM ties

Before the final vote, Castro filed a resolution that would have directed City Attorney Cristina Suárez's office to seek guidance from the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust, the Florida Commission on Ethics or another appropriate body on whether Lago should have taken part in negotiations or discussions about the deal and whether he should vote on it at all.

Lago is a principal of Hammer Commercial Construction, an affiliate of Hammer Construction Corporation, which describes itself as an approved University of Miami contractor. Lago has said he spent about 22 years working on UM projects. He has said he holds no stock, equity or ownership interest in either company and described himself as an employee, the Herald reported, adding that the new company was created this year to build workforce housing outside Coral Gables. A 2018 opinion from then-City Attorney Miriam Soler Ramos advised Lago to avoid voting on projects involving BDI Construction, guidance he says he follows.

"You cannot wear two hats at the same time," Castro said during the debate. Her item did not draw enough support from the other four commissioners to come to a vote. Fernandez warned against the commission turning into "an investigative body," and Lara urged colleagues to "act more like statesmen and a heck of a lot less like political punchlines."

Castro faced scrutiny of her own at the meeting. Anderson questioned a January taxpayer-funded trip Castro took to Tallahassee, during which Castro attended a Florida Commission on Ethics hearing on her permit-expediting business. The state ethics commission has found probable cause that she violated state ethics law in that matter, though the case has not reached a final determination. Castro said she is "a pretty honest person." Lago said that if the travel records are accurate, he was "outraged."

Politics in the background

Both Lago, who is seeking a final term as mayor, and Castro are on the ballot in the November city election, which has sharpened the exchanges at the dais. The same meeting, which ran until about 10:30 p.m., also kept the city's property tax rate flat, cut garbage fees by $75 and approved one year of funding for The Underline, the 10-mile linear park beneath Metrorail.

Separately, the commission has approved an overlay for the area around the University Metrorail station as the city seeks to keep control over high-rise, transit-oriented development near the campus.

What's next

With both readings complete, the agreement now governs campus growth for the next 30 years. The next steps are the formal transfer of the Lee Lincoln property to the city and the planning of Centennial Park, the start of the escalating payment schedule, and the university's decisions on when to bring forward individual projects, including student housing and any hospital, for city review.

The ethics dispute over Lago's role did not produce a formal referral at the Sept. 29 meeting, but it is likely to remain an issue in the campaign, and Coral Gables voters will weigh in on the commission itself in November.