Miami is Getting its First Italian Food Hall
Whether you’re on the run looking for a quick espresso and freshly baked bread or looking to indulge in wine tastings and cooking classes, La Centrale – located at Brickell City Centre – will soon be able to offer you all of this and more.
The three-story, 38,000-square foot space will be comprised of 14 different dining areas, offering a wide variety of Italian treats. The first floor will be home to a café, mercato and pizza bar. If you’re looking for more of an authentic Italian meal, the second floor will have three Italian restaurants and gelateria – because you simply can’t have an authentic Italian meal without gelato! Finally, the third floor will have a wine shop to go along with wine tastings, and cooking classes led by experienced chefs.
At La Centrale, you’ll be able to enjoy different regions of the peninsula known as the “Bel Paese”. From Tuscany and Sardinia to Sicily and Puglia, the many tastes of Italy will be yours to savor!
More Breweries Coming to Miami-Dade County in 2018
Whether you’re a casual beer enthusiast or a Certified Cicerone, there’s great news for you! According to Miami New Times, six Miami breweries will be opening throughout Miami-Dade County later this year.
The Descarga Brewing Company (North Miami), Gravity Brewlab (Wynwood), Lost City Brewing Company (North Miami), South Beach Brewing Company (South Beach), Spanish Marie Brewery (Kendall), and the Unbranded Brewing Company (Hialeah) will all be offering local patrons a wide selection of tasty brews once they open their doors.
With South Beach Brewing Company and Unbranded Brewing Company, a bit of history is being made. The former will be the first brewery to open in South Beach while the latter will be a first for Hialeah. Cheers!
The City Of Miami Has A Holiday Gift For Us
Happy Holidays, Miamians! The Miami Parking Authority is giving us all the gift of lenient parking until after the New Year by bringing out their “Holiday Parking Courtesy Citation Program” once again.
Here’s how it works… From December 15, 2017 at 12:01am until January 1, 2018 at 11:59pm, those people who are a little late back to their car will receive a special Holiday Courtesy Citation that grants them one free hour of parking. It’s like a Holiday card from the meter maid!
The program only works for those who park in the CITY OF MIAMI spots, and you have to purchase parking either at a single-space meter, Pay by Plate master meter or the Pay by Phone app.
“The Miami Parking Authority Holiday Parking Courtesy Citation Program is one of the many ways our organization supports the local community. This program reflects our appreciation for the support that we receive throughout the year from our customers, while, simultaneously, helping the local business community by making the parking experience easier for their patrons,” said Alejandra Argudin, Chief Operations Officer of the Miami Parking Authority.
In addition to the free hour, if you live within the boundaries of the City of Miami and are registered with the Customer Service department, you receive a 20% discount on the parking fee plus the $.35 convenience fee is waived when you use Pay-By-Phone.
Thank you, Miami Parking Authority!!
One Of These Downtown Miami Sites Could Be The New Amazon HQ
Now that Miami has officially thrown its hat in the ring to be the new home of Amazon’s second headquarters, the competition is also heating up between potential development sites. Amazon’s Request for Proposals was very specific regarding the criteria they are looking for with regards to square footage, zoning and proximity to transportation.
Using a software called Zonar that has recently been adopted by the City of Miami to streamline the development process, it takes only a few hours to pinpoint potential development sites and maximize the space with Amazon’s criteria in mind.
Here is the full feasibility report with details on all 6 potential sites in the Downtown Miami area. Which do you think is the best fit?
Amazon Headquarters 2 Case Study on Scribd
Investing In Condos For AirBnb Income Is A Risky Idea
Despite Miami Beach’s crackdown on AirBnb properties, we receive regular calls from hopeful investors who want to buy properties in order to lease them out on the short term rental website. It is important to understand the risks involved in breaking the rules with hopes of high returns.
Miami Beach Crackdown
Because AirBnb rentals do not contribute to the hotel taxes that largely fund Miami Beach and they take away from the bookings at hotels, they are strictly outlawed. The government is in the midst of a strict crackdown of the policy, levying $20,000 fines on investors who break the rules. That’s $20,000 PER OFFENSE. Unless you’re leasing a $25 million waterfront mansion for $8,000/night to Kylie Jenner, the risk is just not worth the reward.
It was also announced yesterday on The New Times that Miami is considering a similar crackdown.
Condo Regulations
Many condo associations prohibit rentals of less than 30 days, or even less than 6 months. Some older buildings require owners to wait 1 to 2 years before leasing their condos. It is important to be clear about the rental policies of buildings prior to investing, because your bottom line will be affected if the policies don’t line up with your investment goals.
But what happens if you ignore the condo association rules and continue to lease your property on AirBnb? According to our contact at the management office at Infinity at Brickell, where the minimum lease term is 6 months, fines of $100 per infraction are issued to the owners of the apartments that get caught. He said that it is also not uncommon for visitors to be given violations for failure to obey conduct and noise rules in addition to giving themselves up for being nightly renters by treating the front desk like a front desk at a hotel. Eventually, the fines add up to make the investment not profitable enough to continue.
Some other buildings are taking enforcement a step further. Mint at Riverfront requires each applicant to sign an acknowledgment of the rules pertaining to short term rentals. MarinaBlue has posted a sign at the front desk alerting visitors that short term rentals are prohibited and violators will be removed from the premises.
With condo buildings, the issue is about security rather than the hotel tax. Each resident in a condo building must undergo a background check to ensure the safety of all residents. If one condo owner (or tenant) sublets their unit to vacationers, this security measure is compromised.
Renting A Condo To Use As AirBnb Rental Investment
The investors we’ve seen are not only buyers who purchase with the intention to run a short term rental business. We have also seen entrepreneurial tenants inquiring about a strategy of leasing a furnished condo and then subletting it online. This is not only a violation of the City (if the property is in Miami Beach) and condo association policies, but it is a violation of the lease terms. Most Florida leases do not allow subletting, putting the tenant at risk of eviction and penalties.
Landlords who keep yearly tenants have already picked up on this strategy and have begun to screen potential tenants for risk of violation of the subletting section of the lease, but I anticipate more buildings will follow suit with Mint and MarinaBlue over the coming months even if the City of Miami fails to pass their ordinance outlawing short term rentals.
******Update: One Miami East and West have both jumped on the bandwagon with the following stern message to residents, sent today.
February 16, 2017
Dear One Miami Residents,
As the Associations have previously notified you, short term rentals are not permitted in One Miami for periods of less than thirty (30) days. Despite such prior notifications, we have received numerous complaints that certain owners and tenants are in fact renting their units for short term stays in direct violation of the Associations’ governing documents, whether through websites like Airbnb or on their own. The Associations’ have sent (and will continue to send) violation letters to such owners and tenants who are committing these short-term rental violations instructing them to cease and desist from such actions immediately. The next step will likely be for the Associations to file lawsuit(s) against such owner(s) or tenant(s) without further notice. The Associations also reserve the right to deny access to any such unauthorized parties who may be renting from owners on a short-term basis.
We again remind all Members that the Associations’ take such issue very seriously. Therefore, if you are engaging in such improper conduct, please cease and desist from the same immediately. Additionally, if you are aware of a short-term rental violation that is occurring in the building, please report the same to management. Thank you for your assistance.
Sincerely,
Board of Directors of:
One Miami East Condominium Association, Inc.
One Miami West Condominium Association, Inc.
One Miami Master Association, Inc.
The Future of Parking in Miami
The New World Tower mechanical parking garage. Photo via Flickr/ dms_archi_mia_nwt_15.
Miami is taking baby steps away from being a city of cars, to a city of mass transit, density, walkability, and pedestrians. A key element of that is parking. The Real Deal explores the topic in an intriguing piece:
Behind the scenes a seismic shift among some developers and public officials is underway as they try to distance themselves from Miami’s notorious car-dependency in favor of a more urban and walkable city.
Vizcaya’s Marine Garden is Reopening Tomorrow After More Than Ten Years
Vizcaya Marine Garden.
Closed more than ten years ago due to hurricane damage, the fabulous marine garden and peacock bridge at Vizcaya Museum & Gardens, the former estate of International Harvester tycoon James Dearing, are reopening tomorrow. There will be an event for members in the evening, before opening to the public on Wednesday (the museum and gardens are closed on Tuesdays). An original piece of the Vizcaya estate, the space incorporates a large aquarium-like canal that connects to the canal running underneath a high oriental-inspired bridge known as the ‘peacock bridge’ and to Biscayne Bay.
Hidden for years behind a locked, foliage-covered gate (and a gorgeous sarcophagus), the garden and bridge extend south from the circular rose garden with its large fountain and ends abruptly at the grounds of Immaculata-La Salle High School and Mercy Hospital. This jewel of Vizcaya with its aquatic fantasyland that would practically invite visitors on an escapade under the sea also exposes the museum’s deepest scar.
Before its closer to the public, visitors would climb up the ornate bridge and from the top face head-on an unsightly high school and hospital campus built over the remains of the rest of Vizcaya’s huge gardens that included canals, lakes, bridges, architectural follies, a boathouse, tennis courts, a ‘casbah’ (the casbah actually still survives behind the high school’s sports fields and is probably a favorite necking spot with students), and untold other wonders. And leading to all of that they would see directly before them the ruined remains of an aquarium-canal matching the one they had just walked through. These magnificent outer gardens were easily twice the size of all of the gardens which remain at Vizcaya. Handed over to the Archdiocese of Miami by the Dearing heirs, who honestly never really knew what to do with it, this was Vizcaya’s real marine garden. The happy reopening of the little marine garden tomorrow is only a taste of what lies buried and forgotten beyond.
Vintage postcard showing the former marine gardens of Vizcaya.
Vizcaya Gardens circa 1930.
Can Somebody Save the Midcentury Gulf American Building’s Sexy Sun Shades?
Former Gulf American/INS Building. Photo courtesy BrettHufziger.com.
The old INS Building, originally known as the Gulf American Building and an under-appreciated midcentury modern icon just outside the boundary of the Biscayne Boulevard MiMo District, is losing its signature anodized aluminum sun shades. Photographer Brett Hufgizer (see more at BrettHufziger.com) noticed construction workers removing the distinctive architectural elements from the facade yesterday. The building (historic photo below) originally had a glassed-in lobby and distinctive rooftop news ticker. As I once pointed out on Curbed Miami, the screens were used to shade the building’s windows from the direct light of the sun, in the days before solar tinting. They doubled as a place for architectural display. At the very top was a funky ‘GA’ logo. Plans are for the structure to be gutted to its shell and remade into the Triton Center, a mixed-use residential, commercial, and hotel project, with metal panels that ‘highlight’ to some extent elements of the original building’s design, by architecture firm ADD Inc. (update: the hotel will be a Hilton Garden Inn) Meanwhile the shades need a last minute salvation. If the sun shades can’t be saved in the ‘new’ building, maybe somebody can find use for them somewhere else.
The Underline is Beginning Construction in Brickell Next Year
The ‘Brickell Backyard’ section of the Underline.
The Underline, Miami’s planned ten mile linear park running underneath the Metrorail, has enough money to build the Brickell section, and expects to begin construction next year. The park has about $8 million in secured funding so far from a variety of public and private sources, with the latest chunk, a $600,000 grant, coming from Swire Properties and Brickell City Centre. Construction documents are underway with design firm James Corner Field Operations reports Miami Today. Meanwhile Meg Daly, CEO of Friends of the Underline, told us “Our target is to start building in the fall of 2017 in Brickell.” Exciting news people, exciting news.
