The Miami Marine Stadium Just Got a Gigantic New Mural by Miami Artist HoxxoH

Photos by Diana Larrea

The Miami Marine Stadium, a sculpture in itself, has been a canvas for extraordinary murals and wall art since its abandonment after Hurricane Andrew in 1992. The spectacle of perpetually changing paintings, as muralists and graffiti artists paint over their predecessors over and over again, is a lot like a vertical Wynwood, with water views. Miami artist Douglas Hoekzema, also known as HoxxoH, has created a huge circular eye, sun, or bulls-eye, with a flower-like iris inside a larger iris the deep blue color of the deep sea.

HoxxoH announced the piece, with great photography by Parcialmente Nublada (a.k.a. Diana Larrea) yesterday on his Facebook page, describing the process snappily: “Miami Marine Stadium 2016, 2Dudes, 2Days, 1Generator, 1AirlessSprayGun, 70Gallons.of.Paint, 1AwesomeStadium.” As it gained a little bit of attention, he told the New Times today that he was inspired by the work of another local artist, Emmett Moore, who also did a large scale piece at the stadium, and by the constantly changing nature of the site: 

“The temporary nature is the best part of this project,” he says. “The stadium provided an amazing environment that was constantly being changed by artists, and I’m assuming it will be changing until the last minute.”

It could even, speculated the NT, but the last massive mural created at the stadium, because of the Heineken-sponsored funding campaign to begin renovations and reopen it as an event venue. Or maybe not, considering the Heineken money, although a great start, is nowhere near enough to do the entire job. As Hoxxoh said “It will be changing until the last minute.”

Bigger Bass Museum Reopening in Time for its Annual Art Basel Blowout, December 1st.

The Bass Museum of Art has announced it will reopen this December 1st, with its interior improvements and four new galleries, when its opening will coincide with the first day of Art Basel Miami Beach which is also the day the Bass traditionally hosts its big Basel party.

The museum will have 50% more gallery space within the same building footprint in a much more efficient layout designed by the talented architects Arata Isozaki and David Gauld. Gone, somewhat sanguinely will be that dramatic, and space hogging grand ramp that ascended to the upstairs gallery.

It would be hard to imagine finding space in the old museum to put up separate substantial shows by three noteworthy artists simultaneously. ArtInfo reports, however, that the new Bass will open with solo exhibitions by Ugo Rondinone, Mika Rottenberg, and Pascale Marthine Tayou, taking advantage of all those new spaces to show more art.

Touring the Fasano Hotel & Residences Model Unit & Sales Center

The historic Shore Club has had a few major incarnations since it was built over 50 years ago. Having been managed by Morgans Hotels in recent years, the hotel is officially closing later this year to be converted into the first Fasano-branded hotel in the United States, the Fasano Hotel & Residences Miami Beach.

The renovation, although very extensive, will preserve the exterior facades of the original art deco and midcentury structures on the site, as well as the Shore Club’s lobby. Practically everything else, including the 1990s main tower, is being transformed by architect Issy Winfield, to a contemporary style with a subtle Brazilian modernist aesthetic. The sales center and model unit both show off that modern look, with a design that’s bathed in whites and creams. As the sales center shows, the 17 remaining units (prices and details below) come with kitchens and bathrooms dripping with two kinds of Italian marble, and blonde wooden floors. Prices begin at $940,000.

‘Your Million Dollar Houses Will Soon Be Under Water’ Wake Up Call Confronted Icon SoBe People as They Woke Up

Photo by Stephen Conlan.

Somebody had a lot to say to the sandbar dwellers of Miami Beach, although most of the message went squarely to the residents of the ritzy condos at Icon South Beach, the first building facing it, right across a temporary parking lot and causeway overpass. “YOUR MILLION DOLLAR HOUSES WILL SOON BE UNDERWATER” was painted (we assume) sometime overnight in simple, black capital letters, on the rooftop parapet of the gutted South Shore Hospital’s bones.

The meaning is obvious to anyone in Miami Beach not asleep under a rock. This resort town of extravagant real estate prices is under unusual and immediate threat from sea level rise. As experts and hard-hitting longform magazine article writers keep reminding us (Remember when Rolling Stone blared “Goodbye Miami” across a two-page spread?), Miami Beach is reckoning with its very real fate. Oh, and whoever wrote that thing way up there should either work on their English or their geography. Plenty of houses will be underwater yes, but the condos it’s facing aren’t houses, they’re homes. There are a few actual houses, but they are to the east. At least the posh people at Icon won’t have to constantly see it anymore though, in addition to having more time until inundation at umpteenth floors up. Developer Russell Galbut, who has been trying to build on the old hospital site for years, quickly had it painted over.

Faena Arts Center Starts Teasing Us Early as It Nears Completion

Mid-beach’s Faena Hotel and Faena House residential tower may be done already, and making a big impression on Miamians and out-of-towners for their glamour, their theatricality, and their designs, but it’s easy to forget that those two statement-making buildings are just the first section of the larger Faena District to debut.

Two more luxury condo towers called Versailles Classic and Faena Mar, retail, and a high-design parking iceberg are all cranes-up and underway, whizzing around a cylindrical arts center and forum, which is probably the closest of all to completion.  Meanwhile, Allan Faena and his crew are wasting no time in teasing the forum’s arts potential, with a savvy Faena Art Facebook Page covering both Faena’s existing Buenos Aires arts center, the future Miami Beach arts center, and the $75,000 Faena arts prize. The new Faena Forum Miami Beach, in a building designed by starchitect Rem Koolhaas and the Office for Metropolitan Architecture will debut this fall. Check out a video experimenting with its potential, inside the unfinished space, here:

Checking in on Construction at Paraiso, Related’s Colossal Condo ‘Paradise’

Paraiso Bay

Since the last time we got a good look at the Related Group’s quartet of ‘Paraiso’ condo towers in Edgewater a month ago, construction has continued full steam ahead, with all four towers and that massive bay-facing amenity deck taking shape around the ever present prefab sales center on the bay. Christian Tupper, Related sales manager, shared another round of construction shots showing the progress made. Check out the photos, after the jump.

The Mighty Jade Signature, Set to Top Off in October, is the Focus of Our Latest Drone Video

Construction Fortune International Group’s Jade Signature, designed by famed Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron, is approaching the tower’s full height, as we get closer to the building’s slated October topping off. So, what better time than now to go flying, up with the birds and the penthouse-dwellers, with our latest drone video shoot?

Jade Signature is almost completely sold out, with only a handful of 3-5 bedroom units remaining, along with duplex ‘sky villas’ up on higher floors, and two full-floor penthouses, including the gigantic upper penthouse, which is also a duplex to boot. A sky villa will run you at least $14.2 million. Opt for the lower penthouse and you’ll quickly fork over $22.32 million, while the big kahuna, top of the top upper penthouse is commanding a whopping $32.9 million asking price. Feeling (comparatively) poor after those posh prices? A remaining ‘regular’ unit, with 3-5 bedrooms, down below, starts at $3.9 million.

Developer Moishe Mana Makes Big $25 Million Addition to His Downtown Assemblage

Biscayne Building 19 W. Flagler. Photo via Colliers International South Florida.

Moishe Mana has nabbed a major addition to his Downtown Miami empire, the Biscayne Building office tower, at 19 West Flagler Street, for a cool $24.5 million. The historic building, built in 1925, is the 39th property Mana has acquired on and around Flagler Street so far, spending over $300 million for the assemblage. The seller was, rather anticlimactically, just a company called Biscayne Building Inc.

Broker Mika Mattingly, who handled the deal, told the Miami Herald that Mana had acquired a “critical mass of buildings” with this addition, which would allow him to “return that past vibrancy to the urban core.”  Meanwhile, he’s been working with architect Bernard Zyscovich on a masterplan to tie together that “critical mass” of prime Downtown land. So far he’s kept those plans nicely under wraps, except for a 49-story residential tower which went public only in July.

New Britto Gallery Opens on Lincoln Road, in the Heart of the Zika Zone

Sean McCaughan

Graphic artist Romero Britto has opened his new Lincoln Road gallery at the former Serendipity 3 space on Lincoln Road, Miami Condo Investments has just noticed while walking by. The very bright-white space is  hard to miss. Alongside more moodily lit restaurants, it’s like on of those bright floodlights that you see mosquitos flying around… right in the middle of Miami Beach’s new Zika Zone.

New Zika Zone is Almost All of South Beach

Photo by Phillip Pessar.

Five new locally transmitted cases of Zika, two locals and three tourists, have appeared in South Beach within the box of 8th and 28th Streets, spanning the Atlantic Ocean to Biscayne Bay, reports the Miami Herald. This isn’t good. Governor Scott announced this as Miami’s second Zika Zone of active transmission. As the Herald says:

 Aerial spraying cannot be conducted amid the high rises and ocean breezes of Miami Beach because the airplanes fly low, about 100 feet above the ground, Frieden said. But crowds of tourists on Miami Beach, and the abundance of people in bathing suits and exposed skin, means more people may be infected.

Although there is controversy over the spraying (as it kills mosquito predators too) this is not good. Check out the Herald’s map of the affected area here.