<\/p>\n
New apartment buildings are opening in the shadows of a Tri-Rail station in Hialeah that connects with nearby Metrorail and a route to downtown Miami.<\/p>\n
CD Goette-Luciak<\/p>\n
cdgoetteluciak@miamiherald.com<\/p>\n
As commuters unload from carpools passing through the parking lot of a Tri-Rail station on a recent weekday morning, they\u2019re greeted by a symphony of construction while waiting for their trains.<\/p>\n
Buzz saws and percussion drills crank up just 10 feet from the train platform, where workers in green vests and yellow safety helmets are building a new housing development. <\/p>\n
The eight-story residential building, named Metro Station 1, broke ground in May with a target completion by January 2026. The building will offer 55 apartments in a convenient place: next to Tri-Rail\u2019s Metrorail Transfer Station in Hialeah. The structure\u2019s balconies are under construction directly above the tracks, and the building will even share a parking lot with the station.<\/p>\n
Mere seconds, not minutes, from the train platform, Metro Station 1 is the closest new housing going up, but it\u2019s far from the only residential project near the transit hub, which connects to Metrorail and a rail route to the downtown Miami Brightline station. Within three blocks of the station, three new rental apartment buildings broke ground in May and June \u2014 and more are being planned. <\/p>\n
They are the latest additions to what developers have dubbed Hialeah\u2019s \u201cMetro District,\u201d a high-density residential area of buildings within blocks of Tri-Rail and Metrorail. Seven buildings are either planned, under construction or newly opened in the neighborhood, each between 8 and 10 stories, totaling over 3,000 units of new housing. <\/p>\n
The intersection of the Metrorail and Tri-Rail lines has become the center of an ambitious plan to transform the area. Renters started moving into the first building earlier this year, following completion of Metro Parc on East 26th Street.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe apartment is super nice and incredibly convenient,\u201d said John Martin, 64, one of the first people to move into Metro Parc. \u201cJust look at the location \u2014 you walk across the street to the station and you can be in Orlando in an hour and a half or West Palm Beach in 30 minutes. You can get to Brickell in 25 minutes \u2014 a couple moving in definitely wouldn\u2019t need two cars.\u201d <\/p>\n
According to the developers, rent at Metro Parc ranges from around $1,800 to $3,000 a month; the average rent in Hialeah is around $2,100, according to estimates made by national real estate broker Redfin.<\/p>\n
Developers say they are aiming to rent about 75 percent of the apartments at below market rates, making use of Florida\u2019s Live Local Act, which rewards companies with tax incentives if they set aside units for workforce housing, requiring prices to be at least 10 percent below an area\u2019s average rental cost.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the genesis of the transit district in Hialeah,\u201d said Ivo Fernandez Jr., co-founder of Modis Architects, the Miami firm involved in the design of Metro Parc and the six other buildings that will form the Metro District. <\/p>\n
Fernandez said the new housing projects will create the kind of \u201cvibrant and pedestrian community that\u2019s hard to find outside of downtown Miami.\u201d<\/p>\n
Modis Architects hopes that high-density residential development around the transit hub will persuade younger people to stay in Hialeah instead of moving away to pursue careers. <\/p>\n
\u201cHialeah is what I consider the backbone of Miami-Dade County; it\u2019s a workforce community,\u201d Fernandez said, noting that the area\u2019s multi-generational family housing has sustained working-class families but often led their ambitious children to eventually move away. <\/p>\n
\u201cIn the past, what you got in Hialeah was just apartments and parking lots,\u201d Fernandez said. \u201cWhat Metro Park offers is beyond that. It\u2019s higher-level living with nice lobbies, lounge areas, multi-purpose rooms, fitness centers, pool decks, outdoor amenities.\u201d<\/p>\n
MG Developer, the Florida real estate development firm behind Metro Parc and Metro Station, hopes the new buildings and their amenities will appeal not just to young professionals in the area, but also downtown Miami residents seeking to escape rising rents. <\/p>\n
\u201cMiami is not getting any cheaper,\u201d said Diego Torrealba, executive vice president of MG Developer. \u201cPeople are getting squeezed out of markets like downtown, Brickell, Coconut Grove and are looking for transit-oriented developments that can allow them to quickly get to where they work.\u201d<\/p>\n
The changes underway and planned for Hialeah are rooted in a proposal led by Debora Storch, the director of planning and zoning for the city. Storch championed rezoning the area where Metrorail and Tri-Rail intersect, creating a transit district that allows developers to build high-density housing. Blocks that were filled with single family homes are rapidly being bought up and cleared to make way for the new apartment complexes. <\/p>\n
What\u2019s rising in the train station neighborhood? ![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/transitpic.jpg\" "\\"transitpic.jpg\\""){kind=spacer}
A rental building rises in a new residential transit village near a Tri-Rail station in Hialeah that connects with Metrorail and Brightline. CD Goette-Luciak cdgoetteluciak@miamiherald.com <\/p>\n
Following the rezoning, Metro Parc was the first construction to go up in the district. Its a 10-floor building with a pool in the courtyard and 559 studios and one- and two-bedroom apartments. <\/p>\n
Similar buildings are planned to fan out from all sides of Metro Parc. Across East 26th Street, the entire block between 9th and 10th avenues, once the site of over a dozen single family homes, was cleared earlier this year for \u201cMetro Parc North,\u201d a 661-apartment development. Construction began last month. <\/p>\n
A Metro Parc West project of 420 apartments is in the preliminary design phase and a Metro Parc South project broke ground earlier in June, which will add 347 rental units. Finally, to the east, one block over along East 11th Avenue, the Metro Station 1 project next to the Tri-Rail station will also bring an adjacent and larger sister building. Metro Station 2 is in the permitting process, with construction on an additional 110 apartments planned to begin next year. <\/p>\n
Homeowners are leaving the transit area Developers\u2019 long-term plan for Hialeah\u2019s Metro District. Modis Architects <\/p>\n
The neighborhood is experiencing a rapid period of change, with potentially thousands of new residents moving in over the next years. But many of the area\u2019s longtime residents are in the process of moving out.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve got me surrounded on all sides; I\u2019m boxed in,\u201d said Vivencio Bello, an 84-year-old retired construction worker who has lived in the neighborhood for 42 years. \u201cEveryone here bought houses to live in them, not to sell them. \u201cBut,\u201d Bello said, chuckling, \u201cyou have to remember this is a capitalist country.\u201d <\/p>\n
Bello said he and his neighbors were all offered above-market prices by developers eager to buy their single-family homes, clearing the way for yet another city block-sized housing development, The Edgar, a project planned to add 642 apartments just a block away from the Metro Parc and Metro Station buildings. <\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone\u2019s moving out,\u201d Bello, who plans to relocate to North Carolina, said of his neighbors. \u201cBut hey, they are paying good prices for our houses.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stuck in the middle of it all, surrounded in each direction by buildings either planned or already raised, diners at the Cuatro Esquinas Restaurant expressed some trepidation about the changes in the neighborhood.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know where they\u2019re going to find people to live in these buildings,\u201d said Moreno Suarez, 62, a mechanic who regularly stops in for lunch between shifts at the auto shop across the street. \u201cWho\u2019s going to rent them? They\u2019re too expensive.\u201d he added. <\/p>\n
Suarez and his co-workers said they expected economic uncertainty and anxiety over immigration issues would deter many of the neighborhood\u2019s residents from signing yearlong leases and moving into the new apartments rising around them. The mechanics also worried that their auto shop, which services primarily commercial trucks, won\u2019t profit from the incoming changes in the neighborhood. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no benefit for us or the businesses here from these big buildings,\u201d Suarez said. <\/p>\n
Matthew Baron, president of Baron Property Group, which partnered with MG Developer on Metro Parc, said around 10 percent of the building has been leased so far.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re in the early innings of this stage of the area\u2019s growth around the transit-oriented district,\u201d Baron said. \u201cWe\u2019re putting a lot of density in, retail is going to follow that density, and it\u2019s going to become a self-fulfilling cycle where the area will become its own neighborhood.\u201d <\/p>\n
Baron said his aim is to repeat in Hialeah what his company accomplished in New York two decades ago, where he leveraged lower land costs in Long Island City to develop high-density housing. Ever-higher rents just across the river in Manhattan led residents to flock to Long Island City, where rent was more affordable and transit options made it easy for residents to commute for work. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe things that attracted us to Long Island City 20 years ago, when I came to Hialeah, I was like, this is the same thing, all of those characteristics, it\u2019s perfect,\u201d Baron said. \u201cIt allows us to deliver a product that can be 25, 30, maybe even 35 percent less than what you would pay for rent in areas like Brickell and Wynwood.\u201d <\/p>\n
Average rent in Miami in May was around $2,962, according to estimates from Redfin. For both Brickell and Wynwood, the average cost was well over $3,700 a month for rentals.<\/p>\n