Design Review Board approves 10-story mixed-use building at 6940 Abbott Ave.; waiver for separate driveways granted with conditions

The Miami Beach Design Review Board approved a design-review application for a proposed 10-story mixed-use building at 6940 Abbott Avenue on a 4-0 vote, granting a design waiver to allow separate driveways for loading and parking due to the site's narrow width and directing the applicant to refine several design and landscape details with staff.

City staff described the proposal as a 10-story building with 96 residential units (including 21 co-living units), two levels of parking above a ground-floor retail component and design-waiver requests to split loading and parking driveways on Byron Avenue. Staff recommended approval of the waiver because the lot is narrow and the split driveway minimizes curb-cut conflicts on the primary Abbott Avenue frontage; staff also noted balconies along the north side currently encroach 6 feet and will need administrative adjustment to meet a 10-foot setback with a 3-foot allowed encroachment.

Applicant representatives — attorney Tracy Slavens and project architect/representative Ray Fort — described a plan with approximately 2,000 square feet of ground-floor retail, a lobby and co-working amenity, bike storage, two parking floors providing roughly 49 spaces each, six levels of residential units above and an amenity floor with pool and outdoor deck. They said the finished structure would measure about 117 feet above base flood elevation, below the 125-foot maximum.

During discussion board members praised massing, material choices and the upper-level amenity placement but asked for refinements. Concerns and direction included: - Facade "webbing" and screen density: several board members said the vertical rods and the exterior webbing produced a busy composition and asked the applicant to study simplification and spacing with staff so the screening reads clearly from the street. The board motion required the applicant to work with staff to refine the screen/webbing density. - Paseo activation and lighting: the 10-foot paseo required by code runs through the north side of the site; members recommended better integration between the paseo and the building's covered outdoor terrace (to create a larger, more open and safer pedestrian route) and required creative, adequate lighting and thoughtful paving and wall treatments to avoid a long, dark corridor. - Planting and planters: the board asked for larger planting pits where trees are proposed and specified that rooftop planting medium depth would be addressed with staff to avoid species that would outgrow the clearances (applicant indicated five-foot planting medium is feasible but will refine details). Board members recommended specifying species and working with staff to avoid large, fast-growing canopy trees in constrained rooftop planters.

Public comment included two callers from a condominium immediately to the south. Bruce Fish, president of the 401 Blue Condominium Association, said parking and street congestion are already severe on adjacent streets and urged the city to consider traffic impacts. "The traffic, the parking is extremely dense now, and I don't see what the people on the side street are gonna do," Fish said. A second caller, Elizabeth Bertons, said she and her husband recently purchased an eighth-floor unit in the nearby building and are disappointed at losing views but did not offer a procedural objection to the design.

The board approved the application with conditions that the applicant work with staff on facade/webbing density and screening, revise planting/planter sizes and species (including specifying rooftop species and planting medium), study paseo integration with the covered outdoor area and add adequate lighting and public-works review of driveway widths and visibility triangles. The motion passed 4-0.

Staff noted a required traffic study had been reviewed by the transportation department and, per staff, satisfied applicable review requirements; neighbors in the hearing urged continued attention to traffic as nearby development continues to add density to the corridor.