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N MIAMI CONDO NEWS — All About Condo Living in the Magic City — Edited by Heinz Dinter, PhD |
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Downtown Miami in midst of a building explosion May 19, 2006 • People driving into downtown Miami these days need to allow extra time for losing their way. At least three major streets — 13th, 14th and 15th — are closed for construction. In fact, the whole area around Biscayne Boulevard is essentially a sprawling, reverberating construction site, creating a skyline of high-rise skeletons that keep poking above the city’s palm trees. Miami is in the midst of a major building explosion, one that will almost certainly bring thousands of new residents into the downtown area. Like many cities around the country, Miami is trying to remake its business district into a place where people live, shop and play around the clock, instead of just coming and going from work, leaving the area dead at night. Anchoring this effort is the immense Miami Performing Arts Center, due to open in October, which includes a 2,200-seat concert hall and a 2,400-seat opera house. “Cities like Manhattan, Boston, San Francisco — these are the examples we are using to move our downtown forward,” said Johnny L. Winton, a member of the City Commission, adding that some 90,000 housing units were in various stages of construction citywide. Mayor Manny Diaz said the building trend was an overall healthy sign for the city. “Is what is going on too much? I don’t think so,” Mr. Diaz said. “The developers building in that area that I know are responsible folks.” Developers say the demand is there. Many of the condominiums under construction are expected to be bought up by foreigners as investments or second homes in the sun. “We have plenty of buyers,” said Tibor Hollo, chairman of Florida East Coast Realty, who is developing Villa Magna (www.villamagna.com), two towers on Brickell Avenue, which he said was the last available waterfront parcel. Since his first building opened for sale in February, Mr. Hollo said, 167 of the 787 units have sold, each at more than $1 million. Dana Nottingham, executive director of the Miami Downtown Development Authority, an independent agency that focuses on downtown economic strategy, said: “In a boom market, development always outpaces planning. We’ve been underserved in terms of retail, arts, culture, entertainment — all of those things are coming on line. This place will be completely transformed.” The building upswing has been fueled by several converging factors, local officials say, including a drop in crime, better interest rates and a local government more friendly to development. Mr. Diaz said: “This city was languishing for a very long time. There is a lot of pent-up demand from people who want to move into the urban core.” Even as he defends Miami’s growth, the mayor has initiated Miami 21, a project to develop a long-range master plan for the city that will address zoning, economic development, transportation and open spaces. The $446 million performing arts center features two buildings designed by Cesar Pelli & Associates connected by a pedestrian walkway over Biscayne Boulevard. “We’re certainly hopeful that the neighborhood is one where people will be living, working, shopping, walking on the streets,” said Robert M. Heuer, general director of the Florida Grand Opera. “We feel strongly about creating a neighborhood.” Mr. Winton talked about making the intersection of Biscayne Boulevard and Interstate 395 “the epicenter for art, entertainment, culture, jobs and living,” a place “where everybody wants to be.” “We want to create density, to give people alternatives to getting in the car and going somewhere,” he added. “This isn’t a single-family residential neighborhood area.” Source: www.nytimes.com.
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