Recent coverage by The Miami Herald has centered on the possibilities the Carnival Center will offer the city and immediate surroundings. The Performing Arts Center of Miami can and most likely will serve as a catalyst for positive urban renewal in the Wynwood district. The Carnival Center will probably reshape Miami in a fashion similar to that of the Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, another city which depends on vehicles as a primary mode of transportation. However, to properly maximize the potential of revitalizing a blighted neighborhood, we should turn to Berlin and the Potsdamer Platz area which was physically divided by the Berlin wall. The Potsdamer area is also home to the Berliner Philharmonie, built in the early 1960s and served as the focal point to the area revitalization in the 1990s, a full 30+ years later. Potsdamer Platz is now home to the Sony Center; a large, $800 Million mixed use retail and office complex partly designed by Helmut Jahn. The Sony Center, with its large and colorful domed exterior is home to an assortment of sidewalk cafes, offices, hotels, art museums, as well as an IMAX and 40 screen movie theater complex. No massive parking garages. No big box retail complexes which deter pedestrian activity. There is actually only one rail line which offers access to the area and yet the plaza still experiences 70,000 daily visitors. So far, we’ve created a cultural jewel in the heart of a newly emerging part of our city, but we have failed miserably at steering positive urban growth. We should look to the success of other similar projects in other cities rather than blindly building parking garages with bright light advertisements or random condominium towers. The Potsdamer complex brought in a healthy mix of local corporations (Sony, Daimler, Deutsche Bahn), hotels, tourist attractions, cultural space, and retail. The new growth in the region has mushroomed around the philharmonic center, a park, and a new museum (sound familiar?)…
Also, I can’t help but point out the negative and seemingly bitter tone portrayed by the Sun-Sentinel recently. Instead of highlighting the positive impacts the Carnival Center will have on the whole community, they chose to focus on the cost over-runs and delays which plagued it before discussing the upcoming efforts by Orlando to build a new Performing Arts Center…Thanks for really reaching out to the Miami-Dade readers guys! Keep segmenting the counties and municipalities…
The above photo of the Carnival Center was taken by none other than James Good. It is certainly better than the picture Rick was able to snap of a new hideous Bustelo Billboard which blocks the view of the center from the south. I’m still recovering from the sight of it Rick…
To see more pictures of the Potsdamer Platz Area in Berlin in 2005, please visit my flickr account…
0 Responses to “Carnival Center Area Revitalization, Revisited”