Euclid Avenue Plaza Extension of Lincoln Road Pedestrian Mall Opens to the Public

Photos by Sean McCaughan.

In the heart of South Beach. the new Euclid Avenue pedestrian plaza, beginning where Euclid terminates at Lincoln Road and extending almost a city block south, is done. The Euclid plaza, which we had just included in our Lincoln Road construction roundup last week, is now effectively an extension of Lincoln Road’s famed pedestrian promenade.

Technically, however, this is also Lincoln’s first completely new pedestrian mall expansion ever, since the road was initially closed to cars in 1960 by architect Morris Lapidus. (the 1100 block, which was also recently totally redesigned to remove traffic lanes that had crept back in, was not an expansion but a reclamation)

Miami Beach city bigwigs first decided to expand the mall at Euclid in 2014, when the city commission agreed on a public-private partnership deal with an adjacent developer, as the Herald reported at the time. With work beginning, the contracting job was awarded to Edge Construction, which from then on beautifully documented the project’s progress on their Facebook page.

This is a Skyscraper Robot Mashup of Miami’s Most Iconic Art Deco Architecture

Miami Robot. By artist Joel Kuntz

Contemporary artist Joel Kuntz’s work often explores ideas about urbanism, architectural style, and iconography. He addressed all of those themes in his Globobot Series, of large graphic prints and 3D figures, created by mashing together simple line drawings and cutouts of the most recognizable buildings from major cities around the world, transformers style.The results are person-shaped miniature towers, or robots, that somehow still look remarkably like the cities they’re based on.

New York’s Robot is a futuristic gotham topped by One World Trade Center’s spire. Paris is a gnarly gargoyle combining Notre Dame, the Louvre, the Paris Pantheon, etc. with an ancient hump (The hump looks like the pantheon, a temple-like Dome commission by Napoleon as his tomb), all wrapped in a daringly translucent little cocktail dress. Of course this ‘outfit’ is really just the more modern great glass pyramid of the Louvre.

And then there’s Miami. Here it is in neon rainbows. The Miami robot is mostly but not entirely a big pile of art deco stuff scattered around South Beach. Kuntz has squeezed in one or two post-modern and contemporary works too. See you if you can recognize which ones. Check out the rest of Kuntz’s  robot-city-mashups over at his website, here.

Behold, the Miami Dolphin’s Big New Stadium Gets Built in One Epic Time-lapse Video

The massive reconstruction and renovation of the Miami Dolphins’ Stadium, formerly known as Sun Life Stadium, Pro Player Stadium, and Jo Robbie Stadium, and now officially just Miami Stadium, is at the end of the 4th quarter, with seconds left on the clock. Going into overtime is not an option. Set on a stadium completion date of September 1st, in time for the first game of the season, the high-performance, genetically-modified playing turf went down on the field two days ago, at breakneck speed, as one of the finishing touches, reported the Miami Herald. Called Platinum TE Paspalum, it’s durable, shade tolerant, and soft enough that players might even  “enjoy” cutting, landing, and being tackled on. It’s the future of lawns.

The entire stadium construction has been a highly choreographed, almost-theatrical spectacular, however, long before grass installation became sexy. Luckily, somebody time-lapsed the whole thing into about two minutes of pure, Gatorade-hydrated speed. The final product, created by a YouTuber known only as Ian693, is a mind-racing, wicked rush. Check it out here:

Abae, a Boutique Apartment-Hotel Coming to West Avenue, is Almost Finished

Photos by Sean McCaughan

Construction at the Abae Hotel South Beach, a new boutique apartment-hotel at 1215 West Avenue, is wrapping up just in time for its planned summer 2016 opening, as posted on its teaser website. Its the latest in a wave of new hotels that have opened within the last couple years along the West Avenue and nearby Bay Road, bringing a bit more activity to what has always been one of the quieter, more residential, quarters of South Beach.

The Abae follows hotels like the Gaythering Hotel, the Marriott Residence Inn, and even the slightly older Mondrian, the last of which is barely a few blocks away. Don’t expect too much action though. The Abae is the third hotel/residential project to come out of local developer/hotelier Eskape Collection, and already has the secluded, sanctuary-vibe of its two siblings, 1818 Meridian Avenue, a boutique hotel, and 6080 Collins Avenue, a condo hotel, both  also on Miami Beach.

South Beach’s Deco Firestone Station Becoming 24-Hour Diner

Photo by Phillip Pessar.

The streamline moderne service station on the corner of 16th & Alton Road has been a Firestone Tire auto shop continuously since its construction in 1939 until the present day. Well, actually until earlier this year when it finally closed, and its iconic flame red ‘Firestone’ sign came down for restoration. Happily the sign’s back up, and new owners, the Menin/Galbut family of Crescent Heights Development, are restoring and adaptively using the entire building to make it the all-the-time neighborhood diner and watering hole it was always meant to be. Family scion and diner proprietor Keith Menin stood told the Real Deal the 24-hour diner will be called Al’s Diner (and not Keith’s Diner, apparently, even though  he’s planning on running it himself) and will serve a wide variety of food. It sounds like it could be a neighborhood mainstay, an ol’ reliable type of place where you can probably find something you’ll like whenever you like it. Two additional retail spaces will be available for other tenants as well.

Menin stood before the city’s design review board yesterday, reported the Real Deal as well. to receive a series of variances that:

“will allow for the facility to be converted into a mixed-use retail/restaurant development with outdoor café seating, a take-out window on 16th Street, and the installation of a “super graphic” on what is now a blank wall facing east. The adaptive reuse of the building calls for subdividing the structure into three separate spaces for commercial tenants, opening up the northern wall along 16th Street with large windows and adding a new one-story addition to the building. Auto pull-up areas will be converted into outdoor café seating with extensive trellising.”

Plans and elevation are below.

Great Moments in Miami Architecture, as Seen in Original Newsreels

Miami’s most iconic architectural landmarks and styles have stood the test of time, making their lasting aesthetic values and design excellence evident through the lens of history. It’s easier to judge a building’s importance with a few decades to think about it . Art Deco wasn’t always loved, but now it’s prized above almost everything else as some of the most innovative and imaginative stuff ever designed in Miami. The Mediterranean Revival Freedom Tower was almost knocked down too, and now it’s probably Downtown Miami’s most iconic landmark. A symbol of Miami.

So, what did we Miamians think of our architecture when it was new? Check out these old newsreels preserved in the Lynn & Louis Wolfson II Florida Moving Image Archives, at Miami Dade College and preserved on YouTube, and see for yourself.

Nobu Hotel, a Boutique Hotel Inside the Eden Roc, is Anticipating an October 2016 Opening

Nobu, the Eden Roc Hotel’s firmly established marquee restaurant, is growing into a characteristically Nobu-ish boutique hotel-within-a-hotel, with new Nobu-ified guest rooms, a Nobu-licious lobby bar, Nobu-ed up pool area, and now the world’s largest Nobu restaurant and lounge. Called the Nobu Hotel Miami Beach, it’s sort of like the old Howard Johnson’s model, except luxurious, glamorous, and very Miami Beach. Now that construction must be nearing completion, the hotel has launched a teaser website announcing its opening (along with a Facebook page) scheduled for this October.

This is the second Nobu Hotel, following the brand’s first foray into hoteling at Caesar’s Palace, in Vegas. Naturally, this being Miami, they’re coming in a little behind schedule. An article last year in Forbes had pegged the opening for this spring. Along with 210 guest rooms, and the 15th floor penthouse level suites, Nobu guests will have access to the Eden Roc’s spa and other amenities, and their own discreet VIP entrance. Yet despite all of this, the Rockwell Group, which is handling the design, is reportedly preserving and paying homage to the Eden Roc’s original postwar MiMo design, by the great Morris Lapidus. According to Forbes, it’s personal for actor Robert De Niro, one of the trio behind the project, who has fond memories of staying at the old hotel. Being an old-school New York City kind-a-guy, there’s a solid chance he bummed around the joint wayyyy back in the day.

The City of Miami Beach is Pressuring FDOT to Beef Up the Bike Lanes on the Julia Tuttle & MacArthur Causeways

Photo of the Julia Tuttle Causeway taken by Sean McCaughan a few years ago.

The City of Miami Beach is urging the Florida Department of Transportation to beef up the bicycle lanes on the Julia Tuttle and MacArthur Causeways before construction work resumes on the only causeway reasonably safe to bicycle across now, the Venetian. At a commission meeting on the 13th of last month they urged FDOT to paint green bicycle lanes along the entire  length of the MacArthur and put the Tuttle’s bike lanes behind protective barriers. The response so far hasn’t been very positive though.

According to City Transportation Director Jose Gonzalez, who recently met with FDOT, he basically got a lot of flack from the department about how little could be done in the short term even though FDOT does have a long term bike lane project planned for the Tuttle (and just the Tuttle). The response from commissioners was a unanimous vote to continue urging FDOT on this, as they attempted to avoid a repeat of the very limited bicycle connectivity situation that happened the last time work was underway on the Venetian.

Anybody Want This Russian Oligarch Starter Pad at Jade Beach?

Okay so it’ll be a couple years before you’re Dmitry Rybolovlev. At the moment you can only dream of going on hunting trips with Putin, or being the guest of honor on Roman Abromovich’s yacht. You’re a Russian oligarch on the make, and you’re still going up in the world, so you need the perfect oligarch starter pad in Sunny Isles Beach, commonly known as the Russian Riviera. You can’t afford a penthouse at Acqualina (either the Mansions or the Estates) with a glass-bottomed pool, just yet, so here’s a nice cozy two-story number listed for $6.25 million. Unit 4505 at Jade Beach has a roomy 4,141 square feet of living space, four bedrooms, five baths, a private elevator and foyer entry, and it’s already decked out in Fendi Casa, the same furniture as Acqualina. The listing doesn’t say it comes fully furnished, but you could probably negotiate.

Bloomberg Calls Kobi Karp Miami’s Mega-Mansion Architect of Choice, Apparently

If you’re involved in the Miami architecture or real estate scene, then you probably have an opinion about one of its most prolific architects, Kobi Karp. Love him or hate him, his work is everywhere, including some of the most massive houses designed in Miami and Miami Beach in the last five years. Is he the the Stanford White of modern day Miami? Ha! No. But Bloomberg interviewed him, in an article published today, calling him Miami’s “mega mansion architect of choice.” The article is about all the over-the-top amenities that many of Miami’s richest homeowners want in a brand new stucco castle by the bay, and in that sense Kobi probably is the expert. Here are some of his most memorable quotes:

“What became apparent is that the individuals coming to Miami wanted a home that didn’t exist.”

Photos via Kobi Karp.

“Some people who have a lot of entertainment, a lot of parties, they want to break away [to the rooftop where] you’re the VIP, you’re up above the treetops…They might have a plunge pool or jacuzzi, but certainly a summer kitchen [and often seating elements called] waterproof poufs.”

“Nobody [in Miami] wants to see a light fixture, unless it’s decorative.”

“Ninety percent of my houses have elevators. When you’re a little bit old, or a little bit drunk, an elevator really helps.”

And not to mention that he always likes to include a poolside “cabana or casita.”