The Costco Wholesale store just southwest of Miami International Airport could be replaced by a health care campus featuring medical offices and senior housing.

Miami-Dade County officials received a pre-application on Feb. 8 by 8300 Healthcare Partners, managed by Michael Wohl and Stephen A. Blumenthal, to building the project at 8300 Park Blvd. The 11.3-acre site is currently owned by Costco but it is under contract to the applicant, who would demolish the 146,599-square-foot store from 1989.

A pre-application is filed so a developer can discuss plans with county departments before submitting an official zoning application.

Blumenthal, who has developed numerous industrial parks and shopping centers in South Florida, said he heard that Costco will relocate this store to the Mall of the Americas, creating an opportunity to redevelop the site. This area has one of the highest concentrations of elderly residents in Miami-Dade, he said.

“People are living longer and hospital stays are getting shorter, and many times when people leave the hospital they still need care,” Blumenthal said.

The health care campus would have 790,982 square feet of new buildings, two parking garages with 400 and 385 spaces, and 130 surface parking spaces.

Wohl is an executive at Miami-based Pinnacle Housing Group, but he said this is not a Pinnacle project. Once the developers receive entitlements, which should take about a year, they plan to sell all or part of the property to an experienced health care operator, he said.

While the developer has yet to conduct a traffic study, Wohl said the health care campus should generate significantly less traffic than the busy Costco store.

The site plan by MSA Architects shows the following components of the campus:

Two independent living residence buildings with a combined 281 units in 444,100 square feet. One building would be eight stories and the other would be six stories.

-A five-story skilled nursing facility of 164,000 square feet with 240 beds.

-A four-story assisted living facility of 104,000 square feet with 80 beds.

-A two-story medical office building of 48,000 square feet.

-A 19,382-square-foot memory care residence with 36 beds.

-An 11,500-square-foot medical product retail/wellness building.

The site plan also shows a pool, several garden courtyards and an internal roundabout street.

“We have a continuum of care,” Wohl said. “People can start living here independently and as they grow older and ore infirm they can access the other housing and services on site, like assisted living and memory care.”

Source: SFBJ