MIAMI, FL · July 26, 2006    Grand Lifestyle Publisher offers condo seekers a focused view of what is happening in the Magic City at www.miamiMagic.net, the online "Directory of Miami’s New Condominium Projects" and "Miami Condo News." News reports include the following.

● July 25, 2006: Same vice — but quite a different Miami
Miami Vice the movie shows a city that’s grown up and gotten more sophisticated since the 1980s TV show.
Michael Mann, the movie’s director, says that’s partly because of the city’s economic growth over the past two decades. “If you’re going to deal with what Miami is today, you have to go real high-end, really muscular,” Mann says. “Big shipping, container ports, the biggest container cranes in the United States. It’s a super-horsepower fueled economy. That’s the look of Miami right now: Open to the sky, open to fabulous views of the ocean and clouds going by, open to the weather.”
Jeff Peel, director of Miami-Dade Mayor’s Office of Film and Television says, “The TV series helped define Miami for people who had never been here, and to some degree, the film has the opportunity to do the same.”
“Whenever you talk to anyone from around the world and say you’re from Miami, if they know nothing else they know Miami Vice. That conjures up all kinds of images of what the city looks like, and to redefine the city for the current era and say here’s what Miami looks like in 2006 will be helpful for tourism.”

● July 23, 2006: A home away from home for London’s Soho set
Nick Jones, proprietor of Soho House, is dipping his toe into real estate for the first time. The project, Soho Beach House Miami, involves the redevelopment of Miami’s Art Deco Sovereign Hotel into a luxury apartment-hotel. The team looked at a number of locations before settling on a base in Miami. “It’s a great city; it’s hot all year round, it’s a party city, it is culturally interesting. It has a real vibe,” Jones says. “People are investing huge amounts in Miami, it’s a hub to the Caribbean and from the UK it’s cheap and easy to get to. It is also the place where New Yorkers go to get out of town.”

● July 19, 2006: Performing arts center gets millions — and a new name
The new Miami performing arts center got a multi-million dollar name change, courtesy of two separate gifts from Carnival Corporation and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation; it is now dubbed the Carnival Center for the Performing Arts.
Sherwood “Woody” Weiser, chairman of the MPAC Foundation, hailed the two donors as paragons of civic philanthropy. “Miami is coming of age. It’s no longer a sun and sand city.”
“We wanted to ensure that not only would the performing arts center get off on the right foot … but that the programming would be supported as well,” said Alberto Ibargüen, president of the Knight Foundation and former publisher of The Miami Herald.
Weiser said he hoped the two gifts would encourage others to follow suit, as is often the case in philanthropy. “People are inspired by people they admire or want to be admired by — and also their own feelings about the cause,” Weiser said.

● May 19, 2006: Downtown Miami in midst of building explosion
Mayor Manny Diaz referred to the building trend as an overall healthy sign for the city: “There is a lot of pent-up demand from people who want to move into the urban core.”

The Directory of Miami’s New Condominium Projects is at www.miamiMagic.net. For more information, please contact Dr. Heinz Dinter at miamiMagic@GrandLifestyle.com or phone 305-600-4655