The following is a guest article written by Ryan. This article was written before the Herald’s article yesterday regarding the potentially impending office boom we could soon be witnessing and therefore bears little reference to it. Enjoy.
Greetings and Salutations. I’m Ryan, The Sprawl Hater, and I’ll be dropping by Transit Miami once a week or so to offer my perspective on the oft-frustrating, always complex, but never dull journey that is Miami’s growth and development.
Has anyone noticed something conspicuously missing from the explosive high-rise boom in and around downtown? If you guessed low vacancy rates, you’re probably right. If you guessed a legitimate, centrally located transit hub, you’d probably be right, too. Nevertheless, I’m talking about office buildings, people.
Last I checked South Florida had the worst office sprawl in the country. That’s right folks, worse than sultans of sprawl Atlanta, Houston, and Dallas. A Brookings Institute study in 2003 found that of the 13 largest metropolitan regions, South Florida’s major downtown (MIAMI!) had a mere 13% of the metro’s office space. Even worse, virtually ALL office growth in Miami-Dade since 1987 has occurred out of downtown. HOW COULD THIS BE? Or, more importantly, what is being done about it?
Unfortunately, not enough is being done. With nearly 100 new high-rise or mid-rise buildings finished, approved, or planned between Wynwood and Brickell, you can pretty much count the number of new office buildings on one hand. It’s possible we could have 70,000 more condo units here in only a few more years, so where are the new office buildings to compliment 100,000+
aristocratsprofessionals living in our city’s elongated, coast-hugging core?The building on the right in the picture above is Met II, the largest and most noteworthy office building currently approved for construction. It will be between 31-46 floors and is set for completion by 2009 (I’d be willing to take bets on that.) A couple others have been proposed in the Brickell area, but there’s no guarantee they’ll be built – and it still isn’t nearly enough.
This could be a big problem, people. The building boom in and around downtown has been mostly good (sans affordable housing, BayLink, and a delayed Streetcar), but without the offices it runs the risk of becoming a high-density bedroom community. This ultimately defeats the purpose of living downtown: easy pedestrian, taxi, and/or transit access to work and home. An office shortage means demand for parking downtown will remain high (stay tuned for a later post on this quagmire). The last thing we need is people living on Miami Ave. and commuting to
Doraloffice park cities out in suburbia.
Technorati Tags: Miami, Office Buildings, Skyscrapers, Construction, Development
0 Responses to “Office Boom Could be a Boon”