MIAMI — August 22, 2026
For the first time since Hurricane Andrew destroyed South Florida’s military housing stock in 1992, new homes for U.S. service members are rising near Miami — a $110 million project addressing a housing shortage that has dogged personnel stationed at U.S. Southern Command for more than three decades.
The development, known as Cadence Communities at SOUTHCOM, sits directly across Northwest 33rd Street from SOUTHCOM headquarters in Doral, roughly three miles west of Miami International Airport. When complete, it will include 60 apartments housing up to 120 unaccompanied service members, along with 48 townhouses, 24 duplexes, and seven single-family homes for military families — 139 total units built by developer Lendlease through its Cadence Communities portfolio, which manages more than 40,000 military housing units nationwide.
The choice of location was not incidental. A formal Army environmental assessment considered alternative sites, including a plan to build family housing near Homestead Air Reserve Base roughly 26 miles south, on land tied to the former Homestead Air Force Base. That option was ultimately set aside: the assessment noted the drive time between the two locations averaged 40 to 45 minutes, undermining the goal of letting personnel walk to the installation, a factor the Army determined was essential to both quality of life and mission readiness. The Doral site does carry its own complications — it sits within a federally designated flood hazard zone, roughly a foot below the base flood elevation — but proceeded regardless given the acute need.
That need has been building since 2010, when SOUTHCOM’s current Doral headquarters opened without any on-base housing to support it. Rachel Jacobson, the Army’s assistant secretary for installations, energy and environment, has said publicly that service members stationed there have struggled ever since to find housing that is both affordable and close to their duty station — a problem exacerbated in recent years by rapidly rising rents and intense demand for single-family homes across Miami-Dade County.
Construction on the first phase began this month, following a lengthy process that included an approved privatization partnership between the Army and Centinel Public Partnerships, the site’s developer. Vertical construction on the homes themselves is expected to begin this spring, with the initial units ready by summer 2026 and the remainder completed by 2027, according to a SOUTHCOM housing timeline. The project also extends to Puerto Rico, where Lendlease is taking over management of 17 new and 29 existing homes at Fort Buchanan as part of the same regional housing push.
For a Miami-Dade economy increasingly shaped by defense spending, port infrastructure, and international trade — as reflected in this week’s separate news that Fitch Ratings assigned strong marks to $653 million in new PortMiami seaport bonds — the SOUTHCOM housing project is a reminder that military investment in South Florida extends well beyond ships and cargo. It represents a direct, tangible commitment to the region’s ability to retain the personnel who support U.S. Southern Command’s regional mission for years to come.
Human-Directed AI Journalism: This article was researched and drafted with AI assistance, directed, fact-checked, and edited by a human journalist before publication.