Quote:
Originally Posted by dave8721
Just to clarify, with the exception of Brickell Key which is a planned development approved over 25 years ago, 100% of the new buildings that went up in the Downtown area of Miami in the last 5 years or so have ground level retail (or at least the spaces where retail could go if they are able to lease them).
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Last I checked (last week), a large number of them do not. Sure, there are places where retail could potentially go, but that could be said about any building.
Quote:
Originally Posted by brickell
You're not wrong, but it's not quite that bad either. Many of these are replacing parking and vacant lots, neither exactly pedestrian friendly. Many do have huge parking areas but most have retail facing at least one street. Part of the problem is that the retail is not coming as fast as some might like.
It could have been done better, but the pedestrian environment is many many times better than it used to be.
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Right. I didn't mean to come across too negatively. I agree that it is getting better than it used to be, but I think it could have been done a lot better. It's just the plain and simple effect of building that many mega parking garages in what's supposed to be an urban area... you're going to basically get a suburban-feeling, car-dominated area. When you set the scale for an auto-centric environment, it makes it that much harder to develop a vibrant street life. That is exactly what we see in Miami's latest boom. With time, I feel it will improve, but it's a tough place to start from. I had high hopes (and still do) for the Brickell area to evolve from a high-speed thoroughfare into a vibrant city center, and I'm just disappointed with the results so far. But maybe I'm just being too critical early on and need to give it some more time.
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Nice pictures you have there.
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