Florida City sells lots for redevelopment in ‘Snakepit’ neighborhood
Florida City officials plan to sell 22 lots in a neighborhood known as the “Snakepit” to a developer who will build up to 100 apartments on them.
The city’s Community Redevelopment Agency wants to sell the lots, totaling about 5.2 acres, to Blue Heaven Villas LLC, whose owner is involved in another redevelopment project for the city.
The neighborhood’s name owes to the fact that gas company employees sometimes find snakes curled up in the meters when they come to read them. The area includes a scattering of homes and small businesses bordered roughly by Northwest Seventh Avenue, Northwest 14th Street and Lucy Street. The Snakepit streetscape bespeaks hard lives and times; some lots have been vacant since Hurricane Andrew swept through South Miami-Dade in 1992.