City Considers Burying Biscayne Blvd. And I-395 Downtown

Downtown Miami has changed immensely in the past 20 years, shifting from a sleepy business district to a bustling bayfront of condo high-rises, museums, and arenas. But one thing has remained constant: the traffic-clogged artery of Biscayne Boulevard dividing most of downtown from the waterfront.

Next week, city commissioners will consider a study on one way to change that: burying the road and I-395 underground, potentially creating an uninterrupted green space.

“It’s really gaining some steam,” says County Commissioner Xavier Suarez, who has long backed similar ideas.

The Florida Department of Transportation study for city commissioners — which the Next Miami obtained and posted online — warns of some significant drawbacks to the idea, though.

Biscayne Blvd. Traffic

Biscayne Blvd. Traffic

Burying both Biscayne and I-395 would cost $1.3 billion more than a plan to build a new “signature” 395 bridge instead. The agency also warns the change could also snarl hurricane evacuations because the tunnels would have to be closed due to a flooding risk.

I-395 Signature bridge rendering

I-395 Signature bridge rendering

But Suarez says there are significant benefits to consider as well — especially if the Biscayne portion of the project is considered separately from 395. (FDOT‘s study looks at burying only the piece of Biscayne near the 395 interchange; Suarez in the past has proposed sinking Biscayne along the full stretch of the bayfront downtown.)

Burying the portion of Biscayne that runs downtown would ease traffic woes and create a pedestrian-friendly signature space for the city, he argues.

“It’s clear that to grow, we have to build vertically in this city, with the density we have now. And to be pedestrian-friendly in that environment, you need to have these green spaces and these plazas,” Suarez says.

Suarez says that the Transportation Planning Council, which advises the county on long-range plans, is bullish on the idea and that Biscayne-centered plans are still under serious consideration. If the 395 portion of the project were abandoned, the cost would drop dramatically and hurricane evacuation risks would be less severe, he says.

“There are a lot of alternate routes than that stretch of downtown Biscayne,” Suarez says.

For now, city commissions will consider FDOT‘s study next week, the Next Miami reports. They’ll have other complicating factors to consider, including the need to reroute Metromover and the possibility of contaminated soil from a former oil depot.

Suarez says he believes the potential positives of an underground Biscayne Boulevard still far outweigh any negatives, though.

“What’s really exciting is that depressing Biscayne Boulevard is really now almost a recommendation for all the agencies I hear from,”  Suarez says.

 

Source: Miami New Times

/by

After Two Years Of Delay, Retooling Of Downtown Miami’s Flagler Street Finally Begins

,

The shovels are finally hitting the pavement on Flagler in downtown Miami, nearly two years after city officials agreed to undertake a total reconstruction that’s meant to restore the tatty but storied byway to its rightful place as the city’s glittering Main Street.

Work has just begun on what’s expected to be a two-year, $13 million streetscape project, starting at the Miami-Dade County Courthouse and proceeding in 13 stages all the way to Biscayne Boulevard.

template_cs5

By the time the job is done, Flagler’s cracked, stained, slanted and narrow sidewalks, its scrawny-to-nonexistent greenery and its notoriously backup-prone gutters will be history, replaced by 150 shady oaks, new lighting and stormwater drains, and sidewalks twice as wide to accommodate the cafe tables and shoppers that the project’s backers expect the new street to attract.

Flagler Street Rendering

Flagler Street Rendering

On Thursday, the Miami City Commission approved the last bit of funding for the project, $920,000 for an upgraded drainage system and removal of old abandoned pipes that have been sitting beneath Flagler Street’s pavement for decades.

Flagler Street Rendering

Flagler Street Rendering

The street project’s timing seems especially fortuitous. It comes as New York entrepreneur and developer Moishe Mana has amassed what the website The Real Deal has tallied at nearly $200 million worth of properties on or abutting Flagler, with the idea of turning the street, which has long functioned as a down-market, discount-shop strip, into a restaurant, cultural and retail destination, all while preserving its historic low scale.

That combination of public improvements and private enterprise is what worked magic in places like Miami Beach’s Ocean Drive and Lincoln Road Mall, where the Flagler Street project’s backers note street and sidewalk improvements set the stage for a dramatic revitalization. That’s what they hope to replicate in downtown Miami.

“It’s really exciting,” said Brian Alonso, whose family owns the upscale La Epoca department store in the historic Walgreens building and the newer Lost Boy Dry Goods clothing shop in the also-historic DuPont building, both on Flagler. “Streetscape projects can transform an area. On Ocean, when you had Tony Goldman assembling property and the streetscape improvements at the same time, you had something transformative. You have something similar happening here. Mana can single-handedly change the area.”

Mana, who recently submitted plans for a massive, ambitious and controversial multi-use redevelopment in Wynwood, has been publicly coy about his precise plans for Flagler. But a video his company released in the fall shows refurbished buildings along Flagler, some occupied by rooftop lounges and restaurants. In the video, Mana calls Flagler Street a “Cinderella” that merely needs a new dress to reveal her beauty.

“Downtown is the future of Miami,” Mana says.

 

Source: Miami Herald

/by

Miami Considers Development At Museum Park, Report Says

, ,
museum park rendering

Miami is considering a move to redevelop a park along Biscayne Bay downtown, according to a news report.

The Miami City Commission will consider giving a conservancy control of Museum Park, the South Florida Business Journal reported.

The park is home to the Perez Art Museum and the Frost Science Museum, which is under construction. The 22.5-acre park is in a prime location for the city and for years there’s been debate about how to improve it for residents and visitors.

A city-commissioned plan in 2008 by Cooper, Robinson & Partners highlighted a future Museum Park with more shade trees, water features and a restaurant, but the city hasn’t acted on it – until now. The park is currently managed by the Bayfront Trust, a quasi-city agency.

The commission was scheduled to vote on Jan. 14 on turning over management, events and development of the park to a new non-profit called the Museum Park Conservancy. Yet, the item was deferred to a later date by the city. The framework of the potential deal was included on the city agenda.

The conservancy could charge for events and naming rights at the park and allow the sale of alcoholic beverages at the park during special events. The conservancy would actively solicit donations to support the park and its development, which is currently not allowed under the Bayfront Trust structure.

The conservancy promised to show the city proof within 90 days that it’s raised at least $7.5 million for the park. The group says it already has this money. However, the conservancy could not start managing the operations of Museum Park until after the first phase of the development breaks ground. That could occur in about 18 months, according to the proposed agreement.

The proposed deal between the city and conservatory refers to the Cooper, Robinson study as the “master plan.” The conservancy would have to submit its annual audited financial statements to the city. The city commission would have the right to abolish the conservancy at any time and retake control of the park with 180 days notice.

According to city documents, the conservancy would be governed by a board of 10 to 15 directors. They would be appointed by the mayor, the city commission, the city manager, a non-profit called Friends of Museum Park, and also appointed by the sitting conservancy board. The Miami Foundation is currently working to establish the conservancy.

 

Source: SunSentinel

/by

Long-Dormant Development Projects May Come To Life On Watson Island In 2016

,

For many years, a handful of initiatives to redevelop a broad swath of city-owned, semi-derelict Watson Island have lurched along the MacArthur Causeway like zombies, never quite dead or alive.

A plane begins departure toward Bimini, Bahamas from the Miami Seaplane Base in Watson Island.

A plane begins departure toward Bimini, Bahamas from the Miami Seaplane Base in Watson Island.

Now it seems 2016 could be the year when the undead — the old Chalk’s seaplane terminal, a long-abandoned heliport, and a megayacht marina and resort plan that’s been stalled for 14 years — spring back to at least some sort of half-life on the island just off downtown Miami, long known as a burial place for sketchy development schemes looking to exploit public land. But the long-term prognosis for each remains unsettled.

At the seaplane base, a new operator promises to undertake a temporary revamp of the quasi-dilapidated facility, establish an expanded flight schedule, and formally submit to the city plans for a new terminal building that include a restaurant and public observation areas so visitors can bask in the romance of travel by seaplane.

Next door, after years of controversial delays and extensions by the city, Flagstone Development is nearing completion of the piers for its megayacht marina, which its representatives insist will soon be operational. The firm has also begun to clear its upland leasehold for Island Gardens, the $600 million hotel and retail complex Flagstone is supposed to build under an agreement with the city — even though financing has not yet been identified, at least publicly, a year after Flagstone agents said they hoped to have it nailed down.

An abandoned heliport sits near the Miami Seaplane Base

An abandoned heliport sits near the Miami Seaplane Base

Meanwhile, a contractor who won a bid a decade ago to reopen the heliport across from the seaplane base and Island Gardens is up to date with rent payments after falling behind and also paid FPL, with help from a city agency, to bury power lines at the site that posed a flight hazard, said Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado, who pledges the facility will be open and running this year. Right now, though, the heliport consists of a rusted metal shed, broken concrete and weeds.

Then there’s the perennially troubled Jungle Island animal and banquet-hall attraction, formerly Parrot Jungle, which has attracted a fraction of its projected attendance since opening in 2003. Its operators are now consistently making rent payments to the city, paying off a federal loan that was once in arrears, and raising money to make over the attraction with a new emphasis on water features and restaurants — and maybe a hotel as well.

Miami City Manager Daniel Alfonso met in early December with Jungle Island representatives, who told him they’re bringing in a new investor, ESJ Capital Partners, based in Aventura. Alfonso said in an interview that the discussion didn’t delve deeply into details, but there was talk about ESJ, which invests in a number of charter schools, introducing a new education component.

He also said Jungle Island representatives alluded to the possibility of new development at the site, something that has come up from time to time, often in reference to building a hotel. But Alfonso said any consideration of a hotel would be complicated because of requirements for a voter referendum in approving major improvements at the waterfront site.

To Regalado, who stresses that all of the projects predate his assumption of the mayor’s job, getting them moving is a central accomplishment of his administration. He notes the other major facility on the island, the Miami Children’s Museum, is popular and on solid footing — even if it took city approval of two massive and controversial electronic advertising billboards on the building to help shore up its finances.

“I think it’s part of my legacy. It will not be my doing. It’s been a long time coming,” he said. “But I think I’ll be very proud of leaving office with things going on in Watson Island.”

Regalado and city officials have defended extending the life of stalled or troubled projects on Watson Island like Island Gardens even after they’ve missed contractual deadlines or rent payments, saying previous administrations locked them into binding agreements which they’re obligated to make work as well as possible. But to skeptics and critics, all that progress is anything but positive. They say the Watson Island projects cement a legacy of seat-of-the-pants planning and questionable deals, with most of the publicly owned island effectively privatized.

“It’s really sad to me to see the evisceration or the loss of any kind of public space there,” said Greg Bush, a co-founder of the Urban Environment League and history professor at the University of Miami. “You could have a real park out there, or at least buildings with a public use. Instead what I see is the long-term lack of good planning and public benefit going over several generations, kind of endlessly.”

Those leery of the Watson Island projects include Miami Beach officials concerned about traffic impacts on the frequently clogged MacArthur Causeway, which bisects the island, as well as the new city commissioner for the district, Ken Russell. During his campaign, which was run by a lobbyist for a group critical of Flagstone, he criticized extensions for Island Gardens, which his predecessor, Marc Sarnoff, supported.

Russell said he’s now studying the deals and the role in them of the city’s Miami Sports and Exhibition Authority, or MSEA, which Regalado chairs and which serves as landlord for Island Gardens, the Children’s Museum and the seaplane and heliport facilities. Under city ordinances, the agency can lease out waterfront properties without a referendum, a requirement for city-owned waterfront land not controlled by MSEA, which includes the Jungle Island site.

Russell said that so far he’s found MSEA’s role“bewildering,” although he’s not yet prepared to take a position on the Watson Island projects.

“It seems there’s a lot on Watson Island coming to the forefront, and these are all things I want to look into,” said Russell, whose chief of staff once ran MSEA for the city. “MSEA is supposed to be in charge with a basic master plan and providing guidance, but there is not full transparency necessarily. This is what I’m scratching my head about, honestly.”

Jungle Island’s president, John Dunlap, did not respond to an interview request, but issued a statement in which he said “it is our policy not to discuss private business negotiations.”

The statement does not mention the ESJ investment firm, but adds: “We are proud to share that companies like Spectra Food Services & Hospitality (formerly Ovations), SharpShooter Imaging and Wildlife Trading Company have already committed significant investment dollars towards the redevelopment of our park services and attractions.”

Some of the Watson Island projects have been dogged by litigation. An appeal is pending on a lawsuit by a group of Venetian Island residents who contend the city improperly extended the agreement for Island Gardens after the developer missed several key deadlines. A circuit court judge dismissed the case without getting to its merits after concluding the residents do not have standing to sue.

The seaplane base’s former operator and the city were ensnarled in lawsuits for years until the new operator, lawyer and aviation enthusiast Ignacio “Nacho” Vega, bought him out. Vega said he now has six seaplane operators making four to five flights a day between Watson Island and Key West, Bimini and Fort Lauderdale.

In December, in his first and so far only commission meeting, the newly inaugurated Russell persuaded commission colleagues to put off until January a decision on a rezoning and land-use change that could clear the way for the redevelopment of the seaplane facility so that he could analyze the measure more closely. The changes would reclassify the land the terminal has occupied since 1929 from parkland to allow transportation uses. That would in turn allow the current operator, Vega, to submit plans for a new terminal to the city.

In the meantime, Vega said, he would remove a pair of dilapidated, condemned trailers on the property that served as office space and replace them with a new trailer. Eventually Vega hopes to construct a three- or four-story building with a restaurant and observation deck to attract non-flying visitors, because fees paid by airlines won’t be enough to sustain his operation. “We charge a minimal amount. Seaplane bases by themselves do not cover their costs,” Vega said.

The Island Gardens marina, meanwhile, is awaiting a temporary certificate of occupancy, which Regalado said should come in January. The developer’s representatives have said the marina would be operational, though the only structure on the property is a small building.

 

 

Source: Miami Herald

/by