Inner city Miami housing development gives Liberty City residents homes and hope
Precious Johnson found a place to live in Liberty City after hunting for months. A friend gave her the lead to rent the last apartment available now in Liberty Square, viewed as a model for mixed-income housing developments in Miami-Dade.
“I’ve lived in Liberty City all of my life,” said Johnson, a 30-year-old single mother and Publix supermarket employee. “I feel more comfortable in my own neighborhood.”
It is a neighborhood, Johnson said, that’s improved due to the redevelopment of Liberty Square, which she calls home.
The federal government commissioned the original Liberty Square, and one of the nation’s first public housing projects was built in 1937. It consisted of 700 units and families. Today, 300 families that lived in the original Liberty Square community already are living or soon will be in their new, permanent homes.
Miami-Dade County and its partner on the project Related Urban, the affordable housing division of developer Related Group, celebrated the grand opening Wednesday of Harmony at Liberty Square. The partners are following through on an ambitious $300 million redevelopment plan dating back to 2015, to revitalize the first public housing project in the southeastern United States. Once the entire project is finished, and that’s anticipated in 2026, the community will have 1,455 apartments plus buildings for education, retail and other commercial activities.
Projects like Liberty Square set an example of housing development for people with a range of incomes in other trendy neighborhoods experiencing a wave of new residential construction, including Miami and Edgewater, said Albert Milo, president of Related Urban.
“Gentrification is associated with a new project that displaces prior residents,” Milo said. “With Liberty Square, we haven’t displaced anyone.”
Johnson’s is one of 192 apartments at Harmony at Liberty Square at 1224 NW 67th St. Harmony represents the third phase of the 10-part project covering nine city blocks. The gated community has six buildings surrounding a playground.
Harmony sits steps away from the first and second phases, finished in 2019 and 2020, of the long-term redevelopment. The three parts include 600 apartments leased at affordable, workforce and market-rate prices and public housing units.
Construction is underway on the project’s fourth phase. It’s designed for 110 more apartments at 1410 NW 63rd St. Two buildings will have 73 apartments with rents from affordable to market pricing, and 37 public housing units.
Liberty Square offers residents a sense of safety, something rarely found in Liberty City when she was growing up, Johnson said. Drugs and violence permeated the streets then, and still do, in a neighborhood adorned by onestory bungalows with chain-link fences and lined with abandoned shops and closed hurricane shutters. Yet, Johnson sees improvements — and hope.
“Two years ago, I wouldn’t let my son out on the sidewalk,” she said. “Now, kids are outside.”
The bustling community is home to residents with a range of socioeconomic backgrounds.
“A lot of people are scared to move to Liberty City, but now we see more diverse people moving in. We now have Hispanic residents and neighbors,” said
Ashley Mendez, 34, who lives in the second section of Liberty Square with her four children. “It gives our kids the chance to interact with kids from other cultures and to see kids that don’t just have their skin color.”
Residents of the original Liberty Square pay 30% of their monthly gross income to live in their homes. Affordable housing renters — those that earn less than 80% of Miami-Dade County’s median income — pay $800 a month for the smallest unit, a 700square-foot one-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment. Workforce housing tenants — those that typically earn between 80% to 100% of the area’s median income — shell out $1,100 a month for that same rental space and people paying the market rate pay $1,250 monthly.
All apartments have the same finishes and appliances — salt-and-pepper colored granite kitchen counters, General Electric stainless-steel appliances and hurricaneimpact windows.
Liberty Square sits in the center of Liberty City. The neighborhood stretches over four miles, bound by Florida State Road 112, Northwest 19th Avenue, Northwest 79th Street and Interstate 95. It has about 26,000 residents, 69% of which are Black. Since the 1960s, Liberty City has experienced riots, including the McDuffie riots in 1980 protesting the acquittal by an all-white jury of four defendants accused of killing Black insurance salesman Arthur McDuffie, economic turmoil and crime.
In 2008, the chair of the Yale School of Drama, playwright and screenwriter Tarell Alvin McCraney based his semiautobiographical play on his upbringing in Liberty City, which later served as the backdrop for the Oscar-winning film “Moonlight.”
Liberty City will expand some of its ongoing neighborhood services intended to stimulate job growth, said Desiree Faulkner, development manager for Related Urban. The developer has partnered with Miami Dade College to offer certificate courses to residents, including a property management program. Of the 17 recent graduates, Related Urban hired seven to join the firm as leasing agents.
Related is expanding its educational partnership with the college this year to offer programs in nursing and fundamental computer tools.
Resident Marie Jean Baptiste, 63, said she’s excited about the computer training.
“Now everything is tech,” she said. “That [program] would be perfect for us.”
Liberty Square still has a long way to go in terms of providing additional resources to propel economic growth in the community. Milo said the fifth phase of the transformational project will include a school campus on a single city block for children living in Liberty Square and elsewhere in Liberty City. The campus will have space for daycare, preschool and elementary school.
Residents also want restaurants and supermarkets in walking distance. With the increased cost of ride-sharing services like Uber and the price of gasoline, Baptiste hopes to get a Haitian eatery and a Publix supermarket in the neighborhood.
Michael Liu, director of the Miami-Dade County Public Housing and Community Development Department, considers Liberty Square a success.
“The fact that this is fully leased speaks to the demand,” said Liu, noting he has another 14,000 affordable housing units in the pipeline.
Housing developments like Liberty Square and even bigger ones, he said, can help more people find a home when affordable houses and apartments in the Miami metropolitan area have gotten hard to find.