WEST GROVE WAS PROMISED AFFORDABLE HOUSING
So, why are they winding up with a Wawa instead?
Miami-Dade County land originally slated for affordable housing will be the site of a new Wawa and gas station. Not everyone in Coconut Grove is gaga over Wawa, and they’re questioning how the project got fast-tracked.
The original vision for a prime triangular piece of public land along U.S. 1 at Grand Avenue in West Coconut Grove was to build island-style affordable housing that would revitalize a downtrodden neighborhood first settled by Black and Bahamian pioneers 135 years ago.
Finally, the people who built Miami and Coral Gables out of its coral bedrock would be recognized with a legacy of homes for their descendants in a formerly segregated community blighted by slums.
But after 17 years of scrapped blueprints, contentious lawsuits, delayed plans, rushed-through approvals, little public review and scant government oversight, the vision has metamorphosed into something dramatically different: a six-pump gas station and convenience store.
Consummated by real estate developer Redevco in a confidential partnership with the local Lola B. Walker Homeowners Association, the gas station will occupy a prominent corner parcel worth $8 million — land that Miami-Dade County gave to the association for $10 in 2003.
The 1.7-acre property, then owned by the county’s public housing department, was earmarked for a mixed residential-retail development called the Bahamian Village.
But no one is explaining precisely how the Bahamian Village was replaced by a gas
station and Wawa — or who benefits most from the deal. Not Redevco, which seems likely to reap a tidy profit from leasing the property to Wawa, a 750-store chain based in Philadelphia.
Not the Black homeowners, whose only known gain is a community center, which in reality is a conference room at the back of the developer’s new office headquarters, built on the eastern end of what will be Wawa’s large parking lot.
Not government officials in Coral Gables who fasttracked the project in a historic district of the city.
Two homeowners association officers did not return phone calls from the Miami Herald. A third declined to answer questions, recited the “Serenity Prayer” and hung up.
With hoagies instead of houses, the hunger for a decent, inexpensive place to live will remain in the West Grove, a community suffering from an acute affordable housing shortage and squeezed by gentrification.
The gas station is slated to go up a block from two other gas stations on land once occupied by a gas station, liquor store and 10 nearby “concrete monsters” — tenements lining U.S. 1—- that were demolished years ago, with a pledge of economic renewal.
“It’s inexplicable how this land with so much potential turned out to be a gas station,” said Jihad Rashid, a Grove resident who has spent 35 years in the community redevelopment business. The original 2002 proposal, under Rashid’s former company, was to build Bahamian-style townhouses with locally owned retail businesses on the ground floor, a key component of a detailed plan to make depressed and crime-ridden Grand Avenue into a vibrant Main Street and spark “the community’s historic and cultural identity as a Caribbean island district.”
‘WRONG PLACE’
“That’s the wrong place for a Wawa,” Rashid said. “It’s another injustice to the cause of economic redevelopment for the citizens of West Coconut Grove. Maybe it’s due to incompetence or nefariousness, but somebody ought to answer for this missed opportunity.”
Neither the county nor Coral Gables appears to have enforced the designation of the land for residential and commercial development, or encouraged the homeowners group to put affordable housing somewhere on the property.
“Once again, it’s the taxpayers who are forced to ask who is stewarding our public assets? Who is accountable for what happens to our public land?” said Miami attorney David Winker, who is representing the G.W. Carver Elementary PTA in its attempt to stop the project from going up across the street from the school. “This land could have been a game changer for the neighborhood. Instead it’s a gas station. Gas stations don’t improve quality of life.”
The county came under scrutiny last month for no-bid giveaways of surplus lots worth $13.3 million to affordable-housing developers. The deals come with deadlines and rules on sales prices or rental rates and reverter clauses that enable the county to take the land back if it doesn’t get used for its intended purpose.
The county’s transfer of the Grand Avenue property in 2003 for $10 was arranged by then-County Commissioner Jimmy Morales. The land is located in Coral Gables’ only Black-majority neighborhood on the corridor that connects affluent Coral Gables and Coconut Grove. The goal was to build a project that would benefit the community.
That never happened. What’s unusual about the Bahamian Village giveaway is how Coral Gables has gone to uncharacteristic lengths to make sure something, anything was built on behalf of the aging homeowners granted the property. When the county sued Redevco and the homeowners to demand return of the land because it was still vacant 11 years after it was given to them, Coral Gables officials “intervened forcefully,” according to then-City Attorney Craig Leen, and persuaded the county to relinquish its reverter clause and settle the lawsuit.
A 2017 settlement agreement brokered by Coral Gables allowed Redevco and the homeowners to pursue a new plan to build a restaurant, with no housing. Coral Gables, known as a stickler when it comes to new buildings or alterations of old ones, agreed to waive fees, bypass public hearings, “expedite the review and approval process” and permit the city attorney and city manager to finalize plans by themselves.
“I know it’s been a long journey. This is an important moment for that neighborhood ... that has been neglected for many, many years. I think it’s going to be something spectacular that’s going to revitalize that area of our historic city,” Commissioner Vince Lago said of the agreement and proposed Tap 42 restaurant in 2016. He also touted the community center.
But by Jan. 28, 2020, the restaurant plan had evaporated. City Attorney Myriam Soler Ramos wrote a legal opinion lauding yet another new project “with significant modifications” — the Wawa gas station. She opined that Gables zoning would allow an extra two gas pumps on the site, for a total of six.
FAST-TRACK DEAL
She cited a petition signed by 45 HOA members and neighbors as sufficient proof of support, with no need for public debate. The project whisked through as a done deal.
Lago said the homeowners approached him when the county sued to take back the undeveloped land and the city responded by “doing everything in our power to bring an economic driver project and community center to fruition.”
“The residents are in favor of the Wawa. I think it’s heavy-handed and overreaching to step into a predominately Black neighborhood and tell them what to do,” he said. “Would I have liked to see some housing? Yes. Does the community center need to engage more and expand its programming? Yes.”
Parents at Carver Elementary and adjacent Carver Middle were enraged when they found out about the Wawa gas station last month. Concerns about traffic, pollution and crime — mostly from white parents of children who attend the magnet school in the historically-Black pocket of Coral Gables — were termed “laughable” by Mayor Raul ValdesFauli and characterized as racist by commissioners at a recent city meeting.
“It’s ironic that on historic land in a historic district across from a historic school, we’re going to have a 24-hours-per-day reminder of how we honor Grove pioneers — a gas station,” said Carver PTA President Estelle Lockhart, who has two children enrolled in the school. The PTA’s petition calling for a halt in plans to construct it has more than 1,000 signatures. “The parents are not the only people opposed, but no one would know that because there has been no public airing of this plan, no public conversation. This was pushed through under the table by the parties who stand to gain from it.”
Critics contend the Wawa gas station doesn’t fulfill the county’s intent for community benefit. Nor does it seem to serve the HOA’s purpose, as stated on its 2018 tax-exempt organization IRS return: “To improve the quality of [residents’] lives” and to “improve the quality and availability of affordable housing within the city.”
Redevco President Debra Sinkle Kolsky wouldn’t disclose the terms of the deal with Wawa. She wouldn’t confirm that Wawa will be the tenant, even though the company logo is on the site plan. She wouldn’t say whether the HOA will be cut in on revenue, or what the HOA would do with any profits.
“It’s a private transaction by a private entity on private property,” she said.
Public documents indicate the partnership was under financial pressure. Sinkle Kolsky and the homeowners had formed the for-profit Bahamian Village LLC when the homeowners transferred the land deed from their charitable organization to the new joint venture in 2007.
The company has been paying property taxes ranging from $50,000 to $94,000 per year for a dozen years. The HOA’s foundation is in the red according to its 2018 tax filing, which lists net liabilities of $600,843.
Sinkle Kolsky, who was enlisted by Morales and the homeowners in 2002 given her experience developing shopping centers in Richmond Heights and Liberty City, defended the project. Neighbors are enthusiastic about the gas station and Wawa as a practical, proven source of jobs and services, she said. OBJECTIONS ‘UNFOUNDED’
“The community is very excited about this choice, and that’s all that matters,” she said. “Why do people from outside the community presume to know what’s best for the community? The Carver parents don’t live here but want to tell the community what it needs? Their objections are unfounded.”
A longtime West Grove resident and HOA member who lives on Florida Avenue steps from where the gas pumps will stand echoed Sinkle Kolsky. She also said she’s been in the community center for meetings, computer classes, first-aid training sessions and holiday events.
“I love Wawa. Everybody loves Wawa. They make good food, especially their soup,” said the woman, who did not want to give her name. “What I’m sick of is these Carver parents who speed down my street, block my driveway and leave their breakfast trash in my yard. Just because they come through here to drop off and pick up their children doesn’t mean they can dictate to the residents who have lived here for 60 years, and whose parents and grandparents lived here and attended Carver when it was the only school for Black students in the entire area.
“They should mind their own business.”
Sinkle Kolsky said previous designs ran into problems. The homeowners’ initial proposal for the mixed-use Bahamian Village was rejected by Coral Gables, she said. A subsequent plan to build a restaurant with lots of outdoor dining space stalled because of a dispute with Florida Power and Light over encroaching power lines. Other concepts called Gables Pointe Plaza and Gables Gateway fell through or were delayed by lawsuits.
Many of the three dozen homeowners are elderly residents of Coral Gables’ MacFarlane Homestead Historic District, which is on the National Register of Historic Places and the Florida Trust for Historic Preservation’s 11 To Save list. After homesteader Flora MacFarlane sold 19 acres to Gables founder George Merrick’s development company in 1925, the Gables’ domestic workers lived in that segregated slice, where Carver High and its football teams, marching band and chess club were the pride and joy of the Grove.
“They were disappointed and tired at times but kept moving forward,” Sinkle Kolsky said. “Four people have died during the process of getting this finished. But the ladies, some of them widows, got it done. They’ve worked hard for years, and this is a well-deserved reward.
“A big chunk of this community’s wealth was taken away by eminent domain. I was asked to help bring jobs and business back. Our mission was to use this asset to re-invest in the community.”
When Carver Elementary parents complained about the rapid, hush-hush approvals and requested a public forum on other options, commissioners said it was too late, and the city had no right to tell property owners what to do with their property.
“We found that to be a dubious excuse coming from ‘The City Beautiful’ that tells residents the shades of colors they can use to paint their houses,” said parent Wendy Long. “Then they try to depict this as a white takeover of a Black neighborhood -another morally reprehensible attempt to distract from the lack of transparency. We just want a community discussion sensitive to everyone affected.”
Principal Patricia Fairclough, who is also vice mayor of Homestead, and School Board member Maria Teresa Rojas are angry they were not informed and only found out through the grapevine. Rojas demanded “accountability from municipalities and a seat at the table for schools” during Wednesday’s School Board meeting. Her resolution passed requiring formal notice to the board and superintendent about commercial projects such as “housing for registered sexual predators, medical marijuana dispensaries, adult entertainment stores, gasoline stations and establishments that sell alcoholic beverages” proposed within 1,000 feet of any school that could “impair the fabric of the school community...with objectionable activities.”
“It’s like a flipped script,” Lockhart said. “Normally neighborhood residents would fight a mistake like this and Coral Gables would veto it.”
Despite its delicious coffee and spotless restrooms, a Wawa is a far cry from the original drawings for the site and an addition to the list of failed ideas for reviving Grand Avenue, Rashid said.
“I doubt this would have been allowed to happen in a white neighborhood,” he said. “It’s another bait and switch perpetrated on the people of West Coconut Grove.”
‘‘ IT’S INEXPLICABLE HOW THIS LAND WITH SO MUCH POTENTIAL TURNED OUT TO BE A GAS STATION. Jihad Rashid, a Grove resident