328 Apartments Planned on South Dixie Highway in Naranja

What's being planned at 27525 S. Dixie Highway in Naranja?

Housing Trust Group has been selected by the Naranja Lakes Community Redevelopment Agency to build Lakeview at Naranja, an eight-story, 328-apartment project at 27501 and 27525 South Dixie Highway in Miami-Dade County. The CRA would convey the 4.61-acre site for a nominal amount and add a $7 million loan at 1% interest, with a 99-year affordability covenant attached. The project carries a preliminary budget of $126.4 million, and the formal CRA board vote to execute the land transfer has not happened yet.

By Pedro Casanova | September 15, 2026

If you own a house anywhere between Princeton and Homestead, this one is worth paying attention to — not because 328 apartments will change your value next spring, but because of what it sits on top of.

The Naranja Lakes CRA bought the 4.61 acres at 27501 and 27525 South Dixie Highway for $12.62 million in 2025, demolished the vacant 27,260-square-foot retail center that sat there, and cleaned the site up before it ever picked a developer. Now it has picked one. Housing Trust Group's plan, as the South Florida Business Journal first reported, is an eight-story building called Lakeview at Naranja with 252,486 square feet of rentable space, 11,466 square feet of ground-floor commercial, and 467 parking spaces.

It gets built in two phases — 203 apartments first, then 125 more. Every unit would be income-restricted between 30% and 80% of area median income, locked in for 99 years.

The money is the part most people skim past. The CRA would hand over the land for what the filings call a nominal amount, then lend $7 million at 1% interest, funded through Tax Increment Financing — meaning the growth in property tax revenue inside the redevelopment district pays for the housing inside the redevelopment district. That is a deliberate policy choice, and it is the same one the agency made down the street at Artisan Pointe.

One honest qualifier before you act on any of this: the CRA board still has to vote. The land transfer and the loan are not executed. Construction timelines are not published. Development deals in Miami-Dade get revised, delayed, and occasionally withdrawn between selection and shovel.

What 1,800 Apartments Do to the South Dade Market

Lakeview by itself is one building. Lakeview in context is something else.

Within a few miles of the South Dade Transitway, the pipeline now looks roughly like this:

• Naranja Grand I and II — 320 income-restricted apartments at 28150 and 28050 SW 147th Avenue. This one is not a proposal. It opened on September 14, 2026, a $115 million project with monthly rents running from roughly $471 to $2,040.
  
  
• Ambar Station — 576 mixed-income units in Leisure City/Naranja, a $128.5 million development already under construction.
  
  
• Lakeview at Naranja — the 328 units described above, pending the board vote.
  
  
• 364 apartments at the Goulds school campus — approved by the school board in August.
  
  
• Artisan Pointe — 115 units at 26115 South Dixie Highway, financed in July.
  
  
• Tropical Crossings — 110 senior units near the Transitway.
  
  
• 100 more units proposed on U.S. 1 in Princeton.
  
  

That is something on the order of 1,900 rental units, most of them income-restricted, landing in a corridor that Miami-Dade zoning allows to build up to 125 units per acre and 15 stories near the bus rapid transit line. None of this is accidental. The county has a shortage of roughly 70,000 to 90,000 affordable rental homes, and it is using land and cheap money to close a fraction of it along one corridor.

This is the same pattern behind the apartment community proposed near Homestead and the $43 million construction loan that moved another South Dade project forward earlier this year. The corridor has been absorbing new rental product steadily for a while now — Lakeview is the latest entry, not a departure.

Here is what that actually does, and what it doesn't.

It pressures rents before it pressures sale prices. New supply of this type competes with existing rentals in the same price band first. If you own a rental house or a small multifamily property in Naranja, Leisure City, or Princeton and you have been pushing rent increases every renewal, the next two to three years are likely to be a harder negotiation than the last two. That's a timing question, not a panic question — these buildings deliver over years, not months.

It does very little to your for-sale comparables directly. An income-restricted eight-story rental building is not a comp for a three-bedroom single-family house. Appraisers won't treat it as one. What it can do is shift the mix of who is competing for the entry-level rental stock, which over a long horizon affects what an investor will pay for that stock.

It matters more because of the market you're already in. South Dade's for-sale side is already soft. Homestead's median sale price is running around $447,750, down roughly 2.5% year over year, with homes averaging about 82 days on market and something close to an 8.2-month supply. Countywide, the median is near $556,000 and roughly flat. Six to eight months of inventory is a buyer's market by any standard definition. Add builder product like the 150-unit townhome community planned in Florida City and the new-construction competition that comes with it, and the picture for a resale seller in South Dade is a crowded one.

The apartments aren't causing that. But they are one more signal that South Dade is where the county is choosing to put its housing growth, and growth corridors take time to price in.

What to Watch If You Own or Are Buying Here

If you own nearby and you're thinking about selling: the supply story argues for moving sooner rather than parking the decision for two years, and the 8.2-month inventory figure argues for pricing to the market on day one rather than testing a number. A home that sits 82 days in a softening market usually ends up taking less than a correctly priced home would have taken in week two. If your listing is already sitting, the question of when to cut the price is worth working through with real numbers rather than instinct. And budget for the transaction: Miami-Dade documentary stamp tax on the deed runs $0.60 per $100 of consideration, which is $2,700 on a $450,000 sale before anything else.

If you own a rental in the corridor: model your next two renewals flat rather than escalating, and check your carrying costs honestly — insurance, taxes, and any deferred roof work. Roof age drives insurability in this county more than almost anything else. If the math has stopped working, whether to sell, hold, or exchange is worth running properly rather than deciding on feel.

If you're buying: this is a real window in South Dade, and it may not be an especially long one. Eight months of supply means you have negotiating room on price, on repairs, and on closing timelines that a Kendall or Pinecrest buyer simply does not have right now. It also means you should be disciplined about location within the corridor — an eight-story building going up across the street is a different proposition than one a mile away, and construction noise and traffic on South Dixie are real for the duration.

If you're an investor: the arithmetic changed when the county started producing this much subsidized rental product in one corridor. Underwrite rent growth conservatively, and look harder at the properties that don't compete directly with new institutional product.

Frequently Asked Questions

Has Lakeview at Naranja been approved?

Not fully. The Naranja Lakes CRA selected Housing Trust Group and negotiated terms, but the formal board vote required to execute the land conveyance and the $7 million loan has not taken place. Until that vote happens, the project is a well-developed proposal rather than a done deal.

What does "30% to 80% of area median income" mean?

It is the income eligibility band for the apartments, set against HUD's published Miami-Dade area median income figures. Under the figures effective May 1, 2026, 80% AMI works out to roughly $78,300 for a four-person household and 30% AMI to roughly $26,050 for one person. Applicants have to document income within the band to qualify for a unit.

Will this lower my property value if I own nearby?

There is no evidence to support a claim in either direction, and anyone who tells you a specific percentage is guessing. What can be said with confidence is that new rental supply competes with existing rentals in the same price band before it affects single-family sale prices, and that appraisers do not use income-restricted apartment buildings as comparables for houses.

How long until anything is actually built there?

No construction timeline has been published. A project of this size that still needs a board vote, permitting, and financing closings typically takes two to four years from selection to first occupancy, and phase two would follow phase one. The site is already cleared, which removes one source of delay.

Is South Dade a buyer's or seller's market right now?

South Dade is measurably more favorable to buyers than the rest of the county. Homestead is running near an 8.2-month supply with average days on market around 82 and median prices down about 2.5% year over year, while Miami-Dade overall is closer to flat. That gap is the negotiating leverage.

The short version: one more building on South Dixie Highway is not the story. The story is that South Dade is absorbing a large share of the county's new housing at the same moment its for-sale market is running eight months of inventory, and those two facts pull in different directions depending on which side of a transaction you're on.

Where that leaves you comes down to your address, your timeline, and your numbers. If you'd like to walk through what it means for your specific situation, grab a time here and we'll look at it together.

About Pedro Casanova

Pedro Casanova is a real estate broker that leads The KREN Group real estate team serving the Southeast Florida area. They specialize in helping people build wealth through real estate by helping buyers and sellers maximize their opportunity in every transaction. Connect with the team at www.thekrengroup.com.

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