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Brickell Stronger Together follows decisions that shape our neighborhood and works to ensure residents are part of the process.
First Miami Presbyterian Church, 609 Brickell Avenue
Status: Returned to the City following a unanimous appellate ruling, July 16, 2026
Background
The First Miami Presbyterian Church property at 609 Brickell Avenue is home to Miami's oldest congregation, organized in April 1896, the year Miami was incorporated.
The congregation first worshipped in a tent at what is now the corner of North Miami Avenue and SE 2nd Street.
Henry M. Flagler donated the land and funded the congregation's first permanent home, built in 1900 at the corner of East Flagler Street and SE 3rd Avenue. William Jennings Bryan, a member of the congregation who taught a Sunday school class at the church, helped make it nationally known.
The present church building was completed in 1949. Its Flagler Memorial Chapel preserves salvaged portions of the 1900 building.
In 1989, the church was listed on the National Register of Historic Places through the Downtown Miami Multiple Resource Area nomination prepared by City preservation staff.
In 2003, following a designation report prepared for the City by preservation consultants, the City of Miami designated the property as a local historic site — a single historic whole comprising the church, the School Annex, and the parking lot.
Sources
City of Miami Preservation Officer report
http://www.historicpreservationmiami.com/pdfs/first%20presbyterian.pdf
National Register of Historic Places nomination form, National Park Service
https://npgallery.nps.gov/NRHP/GetAsset/NRHP/64000115_text
First Presbyterian Church of Miami scrapbook, Presbyterian Historical Society
https://digital.history.pcusa.org/islandora/object/islandora%3A288243
The First Miami Presbyterian Church property at 609 Brickell Avenue, showing the 1949 church building, the School Annex, and the parking lot. The City of Miami designated the property as a single historic site in 2003. Photograph: Brickell Stronger Together, August 2026.
The Proposed Development
The property is the subject of a proposed development marketed as 619 Brickell. The applicant is 13K-BP Brickell Owner, LLC, an affiliate of 13th Floor Investments and Key International. The application is City of Miami file PZ-25-20277.
According to the applicant's submittal to the City's Urban Development Review Board, the project is a 75-story tower containing 321 residential units, with ground-floor commercial space, new church facilities, and a publicly accessible baywalk. The design is credited to Foster + Partners, with Sieger Suarez Architects as the submitting and sealing architect.
The submittal describes a total property of 132,708 square feet, or 3.05 acres. This is divided into a project parcel of 85,640 square feet (1.97 acres) and a historic church parcel of 47,068 square feet (1.08 acres). Parking provided is 894 spaces.
On traffic
The submittal package contains no completed traffic study. A City plan review comment records that under the City's Independent Traffic Impact Study provision, City Code Sec. 62-2.1, the applicant is to be invoiced for a Trip Generation Review. City consultants will then determine whether a full traffic study is required.
The Urban Development Review Board voted to recommend approval of the design on July 15, 2026.
On historic status
The submittal includes Historic and Environmental Preservation Board comments referencing a covenant to run with the de-designated property, and the reclassification of the School Annex and parking as non-contributing. The City decisions that removed those protections were quashed by the Circuit Court, Appellate Division, on July 16, 2026, and the matter has returned to the City.
Project details on this page are drawn from the applicant's own filings with the City of Miami. Figures reflect the submittal reviewed on July 15, 2026 and may change as the project proceeds.
Where Things Stand
July 6, 2023 — The Church submitted an application to the City to amend the historic designation report for the property, seeking to remove the School Annex and the parking lot from it.
July 2, 2024 — The City's Historic and Environmental Preservation Board held its first public hearing on the application.
December 3, 2024 — At a second hearing, the Board denied Tower 2's request to intervene by a 5-3 vote, and approved the Church's application by unanimous vote the same day.
February 3, 2025 — Tower 2 appealed the Board's decision to the City Commission, alleging the Board had violated Sections 23-2 and 23-4(c)(3) of the City Code by improperly denying its request to intervene.
April 10, 2025 — The City Commission denied Tower 2's appeal for lack of standing and affirmed the Board's decision. More than 50 residents appeared to object.
July 15, 2026 — The City's Urban Development Review Board heard the 619 Brickell application and voted 6-0 to recommend approval with conditions. The conditions concerned the use of glass on the west podium façade facing the church, and the program of the ground-floor gym space. The Board's action is a recommendation to the Director of the Planning Department.
July 16, 2026 — The Circuit Court of the Eleventh Judicial Circuit, Appellate Division, granted Tower 2's petition for writ of certiorari. The Court found that Tower 2 had established standing under Section 23-2 of the City Code, that it had not been afforded procedural due process before either the Board or the Commission, and that both bodies had contravened the essential requirements of law. The Board and Commission decisions denying Tower 2 standing were quashed, as were the two resolutions approving the amendment to the historic designation report. The matter was remanded for further proceedings.
Design review and historic designation are separate processes. The historic designation matter has returned to the City, where the neighboring community now has the right to participate.
Our Position
Brickell Stronger Together wants Brickell to grow. Progress and preservation are not opposites.
A project of this scale raises questions about traffic, open space, tree canopy, infrastructure, and the future of a designated historic site.
We take no position here on the design. Our position is that those questions belong at a public hearing, examined on the record, with the people who live here able to present evidence and be heard — which is exactly what the Court has now confirmed.