Monthly Archives: August 2007

In a major update, the Daily Business Review has reported that Mehmet Bayraktar’s Flagstone Group is aggressively moving forward with plans for Island Gardens. The plan, which includes 11 acres of public land and 13 acres of submerged land, has ruffled quite a few feathers at the City of Miami Beach due to transportation issues, but the City of Miami seems intent on ensuring the project rise from under-utilized Watson Island.

Expected to be fully completed by 2010, the project entails only the second Shangri-La Hotel in the U.S. as well as a Westin Hotel. The project also includes a marina for super-yachts (100 ft. & over). According to the DBR article, Mehmed is not concerned with the stagnant condo market stating that Island Gardens includes no condo units. I see what the Turkish Billionaire is saying. He’s got two major anchors and a plan for the first major marina of its kind in the city. This is not to mention, of course, a lease on what is arguably the most iconic and conspicuous parcel of land in the entire city.

To summarize, Flagstone has: Continue reading →

Miami Just Doesn’t Compare

Let’s consider the composition of Miami’s construction boom. Since 2003 the level of construction activity has been staggering. As one might expect from an urban boom, many of the projects have been sleek high rises, but contrary to what is normal, they are, for the most part, residential. When I say “normal”, I’m thinking of the type of development that is to be expected within the framework of a typical urban core. Take, for example, Denver. Of the tallest fifty buildings in the Rocky Mountain metropolis’ urban core, only seven are residential–the tallest being the Brooks Tower at 420 ft. Let’s take it a bit farther west, the Pacific Northwest to be exact. In Seattle, there are also seven residential buildings among the tallest fifty towers. Could I be cherry picking my examples here? Let’s go east. In Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love, one-fifth of the tallest fifty towers in and around the urban core are residential. For all three of the aforementioned cities, office is the dominant use among the tallest fifty. Now, let’s consider the anomalous Magic City… Continue reading →

WordPress is having some sort of server malfunction that is affecting many of its blogs–including mine!!!–and because of this I can’t leave comments on my own blog, am unable to edit posts, and in some cases can’t even post. As … Continue reading →