In Brickell, additions go sideways.

Brickell ran out of empty land a long time ago, so adding square footage here takes creativity. The classic move is sideways: buy the unit next door and combine the two, a strategy owners have used in the generously built towers of the eighties and nineties and across Brickell Key. On the low-rise western streets near The Roads, townhomes and single-family homes still take conventional additions, whether a rear extension, a second story, or a garage that becomes livable space. Both versions are structural work in disguise, and both reward a contractor who starts with engineering instead of optimism.

A unit combination means cutting an opening through a demising wall, which involves a structural engineer, signed and sealed drawings, City of Miami Building Department permits, and your association's blessing, often at board level, since the wall you are opening belongs partly to the building. With many towers now in Florida's milestone-inspection and reserve-study era, boards want to see clean load calculations before approving anything structural, and we agree with them. Townhome additions run on a different track: Miami 21 zoning setbacks, HVHZ-rated openings, and foundations and tie beams designed for the load above.

PGX approaches additions the way lenders approach money: nothing moves without documents. You get a fixed written scope, engineering coordinated under one roof, and a supervisor on site daily while the structure is open, which is the phase where improvisation costs the most. In combined units we plan the mechanical merge properly, so two of everything becomes one system that makes sense. More than 150 South Florida remodels and additions have taught us where these projects go wrong, and our job is to make yours uneventful.