UHealth SoLé Mia Medical Center

Overview

In 2022, Robins & Morton joined the University of Miami Health System to break ground on their largest ambulatory care center to date, UHealth SoLé Mia in North Miami.

The seven-story, 370,143-square-foot medical center sits on 10 acres in the master-planned community of SoLé Mia, a 184-acre mixed-use development. When UHealth SoLé Mia opened in 2025, it began serving communities in north Miami-Dade and south Broward counties. The facility offers academic healthcare specialties, including cancer experts from Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, the only cancer center in South Florida to earn designation from the National Cancer Institute; advanced vision care from the No. 1-ranked eye hospital in the country, Bascom Palmer Eye Institute; urological treatments from the Desai Sethi Urology Institute; top-notch care from nationally ranked neurology and neurosurgery programs; and specialties such as cardiology, endocrinology, otolaryngology, gastroenterology, dermatology, physical rehabilitation, and others. The facility features ocean and lagoon views, as well as a parking garage and open green spaces.

UHealth SoLé Mia was one of two freestanding ambulatory care center projects that Robins & Morton simultaneously completed for UHealth, and one of three projects total. Other projects included UHealth at Doral, a six-story, 160,000-square-foot medical center, and a five-story expansion and new west and south entries at UHealth Tower in Miami.

Building on a Former Landfill

Before a single floor could rise, the project team faced a significant challenge beneath the surface. The SoLé Mia site was a former landfill, requiring extensive environmental mitigation and deep dynamic soil compaction before construction could begin. Robins & Morton’s preconstruction and field teams worked through these subsurface complexities methodically, stabilizing the ground to support a seven-story medical center and its adjacent parking structure. Addressing these conditions early and thoroughly protected the project schedule and laid the foundation, literally, for everything that followed.

Virtual Reality Mockups Save $250,000

Robins & Morton and architect partner Arcadis worked together to build virtual reality mockups of UHealth SoLé Mia’s 13 state-of-the-art operating rooms. The team set out to confirm that the spaces met the precise needs and preferences of clinical staff prior to constructing them.

Before virtual reality became more accessible and user-friendly, most mockups were physical representations of rooms, which consumed extra material and time. The immersive virtual reality mockups proved faster, resulted in less waste, and offered greater flexibility than physical mockups, meaning they could be easily modified and updated based on input from end-users.

To capture input on the layout, Robins & Morton hosted hospital staff at the project site to walk through the spaces virtually. Staff also had the opportunity to gain greater context of the building within its walls.

After incorporating feedback from staff, Robins & Morton and Arcadis optimized the placement of equipment, lighting, and outlets, as well as the flow and functionality of the spaces. Because these changes took place before the buildout began, the process eliminated future rework and wasted material. The team estimated that these changes would have cost approximately $250,000 if they had not been addressed before construction. Robins & Morton’s proactive leadership in championing this technology delivered measurable savings and a better-coordinated clinical environment for the client.

One Step Closer to World-Class Care

As the University of Miami Health System’s largest outpatient care center to date, UHealth SoLé Mia became an archetype for improved access to care in North Miami. The completed 370,143-square-foot facility houses 110 exam rooms, 13 operating rooms, 33 clinical treatment units for cancer patients, nine imaging rooms including CTs, MRIs, and X-rays, and two linear accelerator machines for advanced cancer treatment. A six-story, 306,815-square-foot parking garage serves the facility alongside open green spaces and sweeping ocean and lagoon views. Nestled in the SoLé Mia mixed-use development, the medical center’s neighbors are apartments, retail, and restaurants, demonstrating UHealth’s commitment to bring care directly to its patients.

Delivering a facility of this scale and complexity required Robins & Morton’s full range of self-perform capabilities. The team executed 396 individual concrete pours totaling 40,224 cubic yards, maintaining a pace of four pours per week to keep the project on schedule. Beyond concrete, Robins & Morton also self-performed low voltage work, general works, and drywall framing, giving the team direct control over quality, coordination, and schedule throughout construction.

In spring 2024, Robins & Morton collaborated with the health system to celebrate UHealth SoLé Mia’s topping out. The high-profile event brought together the construction team, city officials, UHealth leadership, media outlets, and SoLé Mia developers, the LeFrak and Soffer families, to recognize the building’s progress in bringing world-class academic care one step closer for patients.

To commemorate the milestone, UHealth and community leaders placed their bootprints on a small concrete slab to be displayed in the completed building. Achieving this required solving a precise materials challenge: The concrete needed to be impressionable without adhering to the leaders’ boots. Robins & Morton’s self-perform concrete team rose to the occasion, testing numerous small batches of enhanced mix to confirm it had the right properties. When the day arrived, the VIPs successfully impressed their boots into the concrete, leaving a permanent mark on both the slab and healthcare in South Florida. This moment illustrated the depth of Robins & Morton’s in-house expertise and the team’s willingness to go beyond standard construction responsibilities to support the client’s vision.

Beyond the momentous step into the concrete, the celebration also included speeches, lunch, a building tour, and the opportunity for attendees to view the operating rooms’ virtual mockups via an onsite VR headset. The event came together seamlessly because of the strong working relationship between the UHealth and Robins & Morton teams across communications, marketing, and operations.

While the event was anything but ordinary, the collaboration among the teams was a standard part of the entire construction process. With a united goal to shed light on the construction process and heighten awareness of the in-progress facilities, the UHealth and Robins & Morton teams held regular brainstorming meetings, exchanged assets, and delivered joint events that supported awareness goals. That spirit of partnership, sustained from groundbreaking through opening, was central to delivering a completed facility that is now expanding access to world-class academic healthcare for communities across South Florida.