Ask a random person to name a few things they identify Florida and you’ll probably get answers like beaches, old people and orange juice. Orange juice is after all our official state beverage and oranges decorate our default license plates, but it turns out that the state’s OJ industry is…
Gentrification is an incredibly complicated social phenomenon. At its worse it means the local culture and identity created by lower class folks (in Miami, often immigrants) is replaced by what seems almost like focus group-tested trendiness and all sorts of bougie nonsense. At its best it means maybe an underutilized…
Last month brought news that the penthouse at the Faena House development on Miami Beach was sold for $60 million, making it the most expensive residential property ever bought in Miami and shattering the previous record by a cool $11 million. To Miamians it was an astounding accusation. To the…
Last year, The publicly funded Miami Omni Community Redevelopment Agency announced it was teaming up with film studio company EUE/Screen Gems Studios to build a brand new television and film studio right in the heart of the city. And perhaps everyones biggest curiosity was, “Well, what, uh, exactly are they…
Wynwood keeps it pretty low. Until very recently it was hard to find a building higher than two stories here, but Moshe Mana, a developer and the owner of the biggest continuous plot of land of in the rapidly changing neighborhood wants to get high. Really, really high. His company…
If you have a soft spot for failing outdoor shopping and entertainment complexes in the southern half of Miami-Dade then Federal Realty Investment Trust is your savior. After acquiring a majority stake in Coconut Grove’s CocoWalk earlier this year, Federal has now traveled a little bit down the South Dixie Highway…
As prices for beach and bayfront land continue to soar, developers are lining up for their parcel along the Miami River, which is quickly turning from a local hangout to the next Brickell. But not everyone’s in agreement about what the new neighborhood should look like. Plans and renderings were…
Miami Beach’s Lincoln Road has gone under a lot of changes in its relatively short history. Originally envisioned by Carl Fisher as an automobile-friendly “5th Avenue of the South,” the strip was converted into America’s second pedestrian mall in the ’50s under the eye of famed Miami architect Morris Lapidus. The…
2008 Miami was in the worse shape it had been in ages. On top of a global economic meltdown, our local real estate market had collapsed and the foreclosure crisis was at three-alarm status. So it’s really no surprise that we’ve grown so much since then considering we had such…
You know what Downtown Miami apparently needs more of? High rises. You know what Downtown Miami has very little land left to build? High rises. There’s very little undeveloped land left in Miami’s urban core, and what does exist is more than likely owned by a developer who has plans…
Last year, word leaked that Faena House — the glittering new monument to opulent wealth in the heart of Miami Beach — had sold its penthouse, which had been listed at an insane $50 million. But the buyer and the final price weren’t disclosed and, like most observers, we predicted…
Walk down the main strip of NW 2nd Ave in Wynwood and you’ll pass a few art galleries, some fancy taco eateries, boho-chic boutiques a Ducati dealership …and a huge pipe and plumbing supply joint. Located on a giant 100,000-square-foot site at 2800 NW 2nd Ave, Lehman Pipe and Pumbling…
Governor Rick Scott came into office with the goal of making unemployment benefits harder to get than ever before, and he has achieved that goal in stunning fashion. Just 12 percent of unemployed Floridians are receiving benefits from the state’s Unemployment Insurance program, tied with South Carolina as the lowest…
Miami Beach really, really, really like’s rich people, we can assure you of that. The city is basically a playground for them, but existing residents are just a bit tired of super-rich people coming in, buying up historic homes, knocking them down, and then building giant mega-mansions that are out…
Plans to build the largest mall in America in the western reaches of Miami-Dade are moving on full speed ahead with little impediment, and today we’ve got out look at what exactly the layout of the mall will look like. South Florida Business Journal reporter Brian Bendall got a hold…
It started, as only a romance between two multi-millionaire retail developers can, with a lawsuit over a private jet. It ended up in marriage. Craig Robins, the man responsible for turning the Design District into a luxury shopping mecca, married Jackie Soffer, who, amongst other things, oversees the Aventura Mall,…
He started out as Mr. 305, then morphed into Mr. Worldwide, but for the next year Pitbull will be Mr. Florida. Visit Florida has struck a deal with the Miami rapper to official serve as Florida’s tourism ambassador for the next year. Yes, the state’s official private/public tourism wing hopes that…
The Fairholme Capital headquarters and art museum is a bizarre thing. First of all, it looks like some sort of fortress from a dystopian sci-fi movie. Secondly, it will be part open-to-the-public art museum and part equity fund management offices (which unintentionally says a lot about the state of the commodification…
A team of residents has been working to keep the billion-dollar retail chain out of their neighborhood and over a year of legal hurdles hasn’t dissuaded Walmart from opening one of its superstores in Midtown. The company won an appeal last week, and now it looks like Walmart is coming…
Earlier this year, Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez announced $200 million plans to raze and redevelop Miami’s oldest housing project, Liberty Square Houses, also known as Pork ‘n’ Beans. Built in 1936, the buildings are in need of an upgrade — most residents complaining of the lack of air conditioning, along…
North Miami’s most politically-connected restaurant is also be failing to pay its staff — at least according to a former chef at Moca Cafe and Lounge, who says he’s been waiting for a check since May. That’s despite the fact that Moca has gotten thousands from city taxpayers over the…
Randolph Williams, a stocky African-American accountant, stood outside the rusted gates of Lincoln Memorial Cemetery on an afternoon in 2001, mentally fishing around for memories from nearly five decades back. Try as he might, his past recollections couldn’t sync with what he saw. In front of him, the 20-acre Lincoln…
