My honest opinion of Miami (Miami Beach, Kendall: real estate, apartment, rental)

[urbandeco]

Took a day trip to Miami recently to just check out the new development and see how the city is progressing. Last summer, I took the Metromover and was amazed at all the new construction going on.

This time, I just took a drive around downtown and over to Brickel. I am not really sure what city planners have in store for Miami. The new Brickell City Centre being constructed as well as the Miami World seem to be massive, and may look nice. However, I am not sure if that is what Miami needs. As we all know to have a vibrant city center, you need to have more than just 2 huge shopping/tourist type places.

The streets around "downtown" still seem kind of run down, and very third worldish looking. Obviously, over the bridge in Brickell, its beautiful and vibrant, but even that area seems very car-oriented because all of the buildings have parking garages. A few streets were looking busy with pedestrians.

And what is up with that massive parking area across from Bayside, on Biscayne Ave? What a waste of prime real estate!! It totally cuts off downtown Miami to the bay and makes it look like a highway with parking.

It just seems like a mess. I wonder whether those downtown streets, will even get spruced up to look like Lincoln Road or just something resembling a first world city. Miami does have so much potential.

[hurricaneMan1992]

All good points. The thing is that 99% of this development is not being done with proper city planning.In fact, for decades there ware large surface parking lots right beside Government Center and Historic Overtown Metrorail stations while all the busses stopped several blocks away! At least now this is being replaced with All Aboard Florida which includes a proper bus terminal that actually connects to the Metrorail and Metromover.

If anything, the little City (well, County) planning Miami does have centers around minimum parking requirements that require building massive luxury developments to justify the cost of those massive parking garages. This makes perfect sense in Kendall, but not in downtown Miami. A downtown studio that's going to be rented to a UM student does not require as much parking as a west Kendall 3 bedroom townhouse with a family living there.

In contrast, in Miami Beach developers could pay a fee in lieu of parking which the City uses to build and maintain street parking and garages, so you have many more small-scale developments on the Beach without so many wasteful, massive (and some of them technically illegal) surface parking lots. (Though even then we have too many cars for our own good because of the lack of Metrorail service). This seems to be the approach they are taking with Wynwood redevelopment, so we'll see what happens.

[Coconut1]

Well, you can't tell somebody what they can or cannot build unless the zoning is completely nuts.

I'm for the building of parking on all new construction. We are not getting rid of the car any time soon (look at NYC... a world class transit system and the streets are still continuously clogged with cars) so it doesn't make much sense to make a problem we know won't go away worse.

[unquiltom]

Miami seems to be run by the same type of people that lease an expensive BMW or Maserati and have to use around 60% of their income to pay for it. "Look at our new tunnel or shopping development or high rise condo or office building... but don't pay any attention to the run down areas near by" It's all about looking good first in Miami.

[perry335654]

That is Biscayne Boulevard that you are referring to, there was to be a complete Biscayne Wall from I-395 to the Holiday Inn filled with more luxury condominiums and somewhat of a fancy structure near Miami-Dade College. The only thing happening now to the wall is a new high-rise luxury condominium is going up where the once BP Station was located along with a pawn shop. The Brickell area along with Midtown Edgewater along with Design district are booming, the Central Business District has only 3 buildings under construction presently.

You are better off going to Skyscrapercity as they know what is going on with the city, along with the building boom.it is limited here and very negative, people are not as informed as that other site

[rnc2mbfl]

Originally Posted by hurricaneMan1992

All good points. The thing is that 99% of this development is not being done with proper city planning.In fact, for decades there ware large surface parking lots right beside Government Center and Historic Overtown Metrorail stations while all the busses stopped several blocks away! At least now this is being replaced with All Aboard Florida which includes a proper bus terminal that actually connects to the Metrorail and Metromover.

If anything, the little City (well, County) planning Miami does have centers around minimum parking requirements that require building massive luxury developments to justify the cost of those massive parking garages. This makes perfect sense in Kendall, but not in downtown Miami. A downtown studio that's going to be rented to a UM student does not require as much parking as a west Kendall 3 bedroom townhouse with a family living there.

In contrast, in Miami Beach developers could pay a fee in lieu of parking which the City uses to build and maintain street parking and garages, so you have many more small-scale developments on the Beach without so many wasteful, massive (and some of them technically illegal) surface parking lots. (Though even then we have too many cars for our own good because of the lack of Metrorail service). This seems to be the approach they are taking with Wynwood redevelopment, so we'll see what happens.

More than a year ago, I was part of a small group of citizens that supported a reduction in parking requirements for new hotel construction in Miami Beach. The new requirement recently went into effect. Now new hotel construction has their parking requirements halved. For me, this was a no brainer as less than 1/4 of hotel guests in Miami Beach come with a car. The prevalence of cars and support thereof definitely needs another look in the urban parts of the city/county. It makes no sense whatsoever to continue providing parking that's not needed. We were able to get the commissioners to vote for the hotel requirement in Miami Beach because we had the data to support it. Before anything happens at the county level, that same level of due diligence is going to need to happen or we will continue to have towers built on top of huge parking pedestals.
Alas, Miami isn't alone with this problem. I was just in Chicago last week and noticed that the enormous Trump tower on the river has about a dozen levels of parking at its base. As wealthy Americans move back into the cities from the burbs, it's going to be really difficult to extricate their personal cars from their lives.

[Bobdreamz]

The Miami21 plan also reduces parking requirements in new developments. The city of Miami used to require 2 parking spaces for every unit and that has been eliminated. The Centro which is a 36 story rental building being built downtown has no parking garage.

[hurricaneMan1992]

Originally Posted by Coconut1

Well, you can't tell somebody what they can or cannot build unless the zoning is completely nuts.

I'm for the building of parking on all new construction. We are not getting rid of the car any time soon (look at NYC... a world class transit system and the streets are still continuously clogged with cars) so it doesn't make much sense to make a problem we know won't go away worse.

Yes, you can still having parking, we need to stop pretending that every 400 sq. ft. studio apartment requires 1.5 dedicated parking spots, just like a townhouse with a family, and it has to be ON SITE. NOW THAT IS NUTS!!! Also stop treating parking and road space as unlimited, free resources--because they're not.

"The Tragedy of the Commons," now that is the real problem that we know won't go away. Congestion tolling plus having alternatives to driving (less cars on the road for the same capacity of PEOPLE) are the only solution known to humankind. We don't have to keep doing more of the same when it simply isn't working anymore. For example, many European city centers which previously had car-choked city centers have or are moving towards city centers which are entirely car-free zones. Europeans own cars just as much as we do, but they use them less often. This approach to zoning would indeed be considered "completely nuts" in the US--and indeed, it may get you committed or Baker-acted if you brought it up in a City or County planning meeting around here.

So if you need a dedicated parking spot, you pay for it in a garage addition to rent/mortgage. And you walk 5 minutes to get your car--it's not going to kill you, trust me. But if designed correctly, the garage has better access to highways and main roads, so you don't waste time in city traffic and you don't contribute to local congestion. Who knows, you may actually get on I-95 faster that way. If you don't need parking, or only need it occasionally, you don't have to pay for it 24/7/365 through your rent or mortgage and property taxes. If you're willing to walk further to a less convenient garage, you'd pay less for parking, and vice versa. Valet parking if you absolutely don't have the time to walk. So having off-site parking is really not a "problem." Just the good old free market economy at work. Hey, nobody is forcing anyone to live in the city center. Besides, in the not too distant future your automated car will be driving to pick you up anyways--"problem" solved. And there's always space for developers to build out another Aventura (with some bars and restaurants thrown in) or even Midtown if you wanted to live there--just not right in the heart of downtown where there is a huge public investment in mass transit and limited space on the road (not to mention drawbridges...).

P.S. NYC actually outgrew it's transit system decades ago and started accommodating cars (tearing up surface streetcars, for example) instead of expanding their system to move more people. Car-dependent density...the worse of both worlds. NYC has world class mass transit...well, BY US STANDARDS.