Miami Building Boom: See It Like A Native

When I started writing this piece, my intention was to evaluate Miami’s building boom from a visual perspective in Manola’s tongue-in-cheek style.  I figured it would be simple: I could tell you about how the Icon’s parking garage looks like a giant pigeon coop.  I could tell you that high-rise condominiums are built in the interest of cars, where they can rest after they drop off their people at night.  I could make you laugh at the idea that Godzilla and Mothra would be cat-fighting drag queens on South Beach, since so many buildings are painted pastel colors.  And lastly, I could confess to you that all the new high-rises are really lasting tributes to the erections of boys I smooched on the beach.  But you know what? The more I write, the more I realize the situation isn’t funny at all.

An Architect’s Daughter

When I was a little girl growing up in Miami, I would love wearing my dad’s hardhat when he came home from work, because it would wobble on my tiny head.  No, my father wasn’t a construction worker, but an old-school architect who had to deal with the realities of construction.  On weekends, I also loved looking at his architectural plans.  The paper was so big, spread out on the drafting table, full of strange lines that I knew eventually became scary giant buildings.

And you know what?  Things haven’t really changed.  I’m all grown up now but the buildings are still scary and giant.

My father was involved in the design of the One Biscayne Tower – the tallest building in downtown Miami circa 1970.  Development put food on our table when I was a child and for my parents, it still does.  My father is the “jurassic” member of a prestigious firm developing, among many projects, some of the new Biscayne corridor condominiums. He’s an indispensable old warhorse because, as he tells me, today’s “kids” are great with computers but don’t have the foggiest idea about physics and engineering.  His job is to make sure the new towers don’t fall on our heads or sink into the ground—but that’s another story.

As an architect’s daughter, I grew to appreciate the art and science of architecture.  I became a writer, but for me architecture is personal and I take the recent construction boom of high rises in Miami very personally.  As one who loves her city and is invested in continuing to make a life here, I find these behemoths to have little or no relevance to my life.  They’re strangers, invading my territory.

I may be long past adolescence but Miami isn’t.  I support the city’s progress, which is not only necessary but also highly desirable; nevertheless, I’m torn between the visual impact of my surroundings and what the building boom represents to me.

So come, take my hand and let’s take a peak at the new Miami from a native’s perspective.

Bayhattan

Miami’s eastern corridor is looking grand, gushing out of the shallow bay like so many glass and concrete geysers.  Miami CSI aerial footage makes the city look beautiful, crisp and colorful.  But that’s a bird’s eye view.  What do I see from the ground?  At the Miami River bridge downtown, I see the Tequesta Indian immortalized in a bronze statue, brandishing his arrow against a squadron of construction cranes.  He looks so small and helpless against the tide of development, dwarfed in scale compared to the MET Miami’s towers and parking garages.

I’ve traveled to other cities where landmarks such as the mouth of the Miami River would’ve been reserved for public use, instead of being suffocated by private development. Elsewhere, buildings do dominate sightlines, but they recede from the waterfront.  Take Barcelona, for example: it’s clear that in that city, the waterfront is for all to enjoy. 

Miami does have some public waterfront space.  Plans for a world-class Museum Park are underway, but that’s not my point. When so many sightlines and recreational spaces are developed to fill somebody’s pocket, this speaks volumes of construction that shows little respect for civic pride.  Obscuring sightlines and suffocating the waterfront gives citizens little opportunity to pay homage to a city’s natural beauty and distinctive geography. It’s little wonder many Miamians feel they don’t “own” their city.  You’d rarely hear a New Yorker say that about Central Park.

Beachattan

Let’s turn east to Macarthur Causeway now, shall we?  It’s gorgeous. Port of Miami and the islands don’t interfere with the vast blue sky and the view of the water—a world-class entry into a top tourism destination.  And then, we arrive at the island and what do we see?  A parking garage.

To me, the Icon’s parking garage literally and symbolically undermines the beauty of Miami Beach.  Long gone is the wide, unobstructed view of Miami Beach Marina with its palm trees and sailboats. But that luxury condominium is just one of Miami Beach’s phallic icons:  all along many stretches of Miami Beach’s waterfront, there are leviathan condominiums that defiantly obscure the morning and afternoon sun from the rest of the island.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not naïve.  I realize that any bustling metropolitan area combined with a major tourist destination should have its share of impressive buildings that support living, commerce and pleasure.  Miami should grow up near the water, both figuratively and literally – a far better than alternative that encroaching upon the Everglades.

So, resigned to the economic realities, I come to an ironic conclusion:  I’m not against buildings, just building for building’s sake.  Downtown and Miami Beach skylines do look stunning, foretelling a metropolitan culture that has such exciting potential.  Perhaps I’m not being fair to Miami.  I too had growing pains, so why not she? In ten years, I might be singing a different tune.

But today, sadly, the buildings and construction cranes remind me of the fact that while there are homeless people downtown, Miami is whoring itself out to development that overshadows communities.  These buildings poke out of the land with bravado, mocking the idea of affordable housing.  And “affordable” isn’t just a need for the poor, it’s also a concern for so many talented, hard-working, college-educated white-collar middle class people who can’t afford skyscraping mortgages.

This bothers me.  I choose to be a freelance writer and live with less.  Home ownership isn’t one of my goals right now; my notion of prosperity is aligned with my career.  But what of my friends and relatives who really work hard toward that goal?  How can the city nurture real prosperity if it caters only to an exclusive, moneyed minority?  How do developers expect families to pack up and move downtown, if salaries don’t match costs and what’s more, there aren’t any new schools to serve them?

As a child from the seventies who is invested in her community, I can understand how many people may feel outcast by development that only caters to wealthy investors, foreigners and the fabulous twenty-something residents represented by fashion models on the billboards.  Seriously, do these would-be buyers even exist? A fantasy world is being fabricated right before our very eyes. 

To me, these buildings are big bullies, full of hubris, hoarding the natural beauty of the barrier islands and the coastal municipalities.  Glass houses, where category five hurricanes shouldn’t throw stones.  I see developers as greedy colonizers, no differently than the Tequesta Indian would’ve seen Columbus, had the conquistador landed here first.  He would’ve planted the flag and said: “I own you now.  Get out.”

But you know what, big spender?  I’m not budging.  I’m laying claim to my life here.  This is MY city.  It’s the one true love of my life, even if it’s tough love.  As with everything in life, change is good, but change for the better, with real lives and not just real estate as the only motivation for change. 

You need to ask yourself:  do bigger buildings make for better lives?  Developing Miami means not just building more high-rises for investors and wealthy transient residents, but for people who have been invested in this city for a lifetime.  Start building lives.  People are Miami’s greatest resource, not buildings.

Related Links: • Photography Courtesy of James Good on Flickr • Miami Buildings (A-Z) Related Categories: Miami: Local News, About the Author: Maria de los Angeles is a freelance wordsmith who loves to write about all things travel in Florida and the Caribbean. She is also the author of the award-winning blog Sex and the Beach. See more articles by Maria de los Angeles. See more articles by Maria de los Angeles Was This Post Helpful? Please Share It With Others! Tweet

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