Babylon Apartments Demolition Blocked… For Now

Babylon Apartments. Photo by Phillip Pessar.

The City of Miami’s historic preservation board voted Tuesday evening to block demolition of the iconic Babylon Apartments on Brickell Bay Drive, which is one of architecture firm Arquitectonica’s very first buildings and one of its most iconic. Although the owner, Francisco “Paco” Martinez, who once stared in old spaghetti western movies under the name George Martin, was able to get the City of Miami to condemn the structure, the preservation board unanimously voted to consider preservation a day before Paco was to get his demolition permit. This places a 120 day moratorium on demolition, giving city staff time to further consider the historic importance of the building.

Since its age falls significantly short of the standard 50-year cutoff for historic preservation, the structure must meet a higher bar of “exceptional importance” to warrant historic designation. (It was designed in 1979 and completed in 1982) Preservationists, however, argue that is exactly what it is. “Few dispute the architectural originality of the small Brickell apartment building, distinguished by its vivid red, ziggurat-shaped face, its key role in shaping the redevelopment of Brickell as an urban residential district in the 1980s, or its role in gaining a worldwide rep for the young Arquitectonica.” writes Andres Viglucci in the Miami Herald. Meanwhile, prominent historian Arva Moore Parks calls the Babylon “truly an iconic building.” The Babylon stands among the Atlantis, the Pink House, and the Palace Condominium, as Arquitectonica’s most iconic early buildings, which themselves set the stylistic tone for Miami in the ’80s.

Taxi Companies Are Suing Miami-Dade for Legalizing Uber and Lyft

Photo via Chris Goldberg/Flickr

Yesterday Uber and Lyft were both legalized in Miami-Dade County, following years of legal wrangling and a county commission vote of 9-2 strongly in their favor. The law allowing Uber and Lyft on the roads officially will take ten days to go into effect, but for taxi companies the fight isn’t over yet. In a last ditch effort, they have sued Miami-Dade County for $1 billion in lost medallion values. Is the county worried? Apparently, not really. Similar legal action in New York was unsuccessful. “We can’t be held hostage,” Mayor Gimenez told the Miami Herald Tuesday evening. “That was something they were hanging over our heads for a long time, to scare us. There’s been legal action around the country. We’ll take that on, too.”

Kukaramakara Moving into Revolving Door Retail Space at 900 Biscayne

Kukaramakara. Photo by Lucas Lechuga

The ground-floor retail/restaurant space at 900 Biscayne Bay has had a series of tenants sine the building’s completion in 2008. but will the building’s latest entree be the right fit? Kukaramakara, a live band venue just opened over the past weekend. Up until 2 or 3 weeks ago, the space was occupied by Libar Steakhouse, before that Doma Polo Bistro, and before that another place, which, if we remember correctly, was an Argentinian restaurant. Meanwhile the space itself was put on the market for sale earlier this year.

The space is a great example of the amount of retail turnover on this stretch of Biscayne Boulevard, the so-called Biscayne Boulevard wall. The Marquis had a hotel, and now it’s about to have another hotel. 888 Biscayne Boulevard/Marina Blue is getting a CVS in their corner space. The ground floor retail space at Ten Museum Park has never had tenant. And soon One Thousand Museum will be adding more retail square footage to the row. With new construction happening nearby, a neighborhood in transition, and lots of traffic along Biscayne Boulevard, when will the stretch reach some stability?

Did a Kaleidoscope Explode in This Modernist Condo?

Santa Maria condominiums, one of Brickell’s most stalwart high-end condo towers, is where you would be likely to find somewhat predictable interior design choices, liked overstuffed club chairs and wainscoting set off by a Dale Chihuly chandelier. Unit 1643, priced at $5.5 million, has none of those things. Instead it’s a white box condo with bold, solid colors, and geometric designs selectively streaked over walls, ceilings, and floors. The dining room comes in a black & white diamond pattern. There are yellow checkerboard-ish walls in a bathroom. The kids’ rooms are colorful, as kids’ rooms tend to be, and the kitchen is triangular. Out in the living room,  a giant circular black rug and three-piece yellow couch dominate the space, while on the balcony the ottomans are made of grass.

UberPOOL Prices Lowered Again for Urbanite Miamians

UberPOOL, the least expensive and most egalitarian version of Uber, is now up to 80% off for rides in Downtown Miami, Brickell, Miami Beach, Coconut Grove, Key Biscayne, Coral Gables, and every location within the Miami Request Zone. That means that if you live in Brickell but want to make it over to to South Beach but don’t mind sharing a car with a stranger or two you’r paying a fraction off what you had to pay before. Checking earlier today, UberPOOL was offering a ride from South Beach to Downtown for just over $2. A more recent check showed the price had risen slightly to $3-something, while an estimate for UberX (the second-least expensive version) came in at just over $7. This could be what travel pricing looks like in the brave new world, heavily based on distance and economy. When an Uber ride costs about the same as the bus, nevermind parking, is when Miami transportation rules really start to change.

UPDATE: Uber and competitor Lyft are now legal in Miami.

Map via Uber

Michael Dezer’s New Car Warehouse Says a Lot About the Relationship Between Men and Their Cars

Photo via Google Street View

They say men who buy big cars have small… feet, but how about men who have dozens and dozens? Developer Michael Dezer has purchased a warehouse at 5320 Powerline Road in Fort Lauderdale where he intends to hold some of his-ever expanding car collection. That is, after Dezer gets out the building’s current occupants, a place called ‘Dirt Cheap‘ with a picture of a chicken, out front. ‘Dirt Cheap’ is a chain of highly discounted retailers, not a chicken processing plant, so the chicken doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense. However, if Dezer could (or would) leave the sign up with his fleet of cars parked around around, the self-effacing euphemism of it all would be great. Let’s hope his sense of humor is bigger than some men’s feet. The warehouse cost him $3.6 million.

Classic Miami Beach Med-Deco House by Flamingo Park is $2.499M

Mediterranean Revival ruled South Floridian architecture in the 1920s, while art deco, that fanciful modernist creation based on the lines of technology and ideas of the future, prevailed in the ’30s and ’40s. In the balmy, already fantasy-like atmosphere of South Florida, these two architectural styles would also sprout another unlikely peer generally called Med-Deco. This $2.499 million renovated house for sale in the Flamingo Park neighborhood and designed by Henry Hohauser is an example of the illusive Med-Deco.

Formally Med-Deco makes no sense. Is this house, built in 1935. supposed to be a recreated Spanish villa or a Corbusian ‘machine for living?’ Are its occupants living in the future (as imagined in 1935) or the past? Visually it’s a delight. The five bedroom, five bath house has just over 3,300 square feet of living space, and is replete with classic architectural details including terrazzo floors, a stone faux fireplace (which may originally have been gas), graceful curves, and a hemicircular (a hemicircle is a structure in the form of a half-circle) dining nook.