According to the Herald’s article, the project’s developer Carlos Rua has admitted his frustration with Grove NIMBYs, whom he has been trying to negotiate with for more than a year over building standards and specifications.
Now I know I have lambasted this project in the past for the incredible oversupply of parking being proposed, but as time goes by and this project continues to linger, I find myself disheartened by the lack of progress. I’m tired of looking at the large vacant parcel adjacent to the station as it sits fenced off waiting for the project’s groundbreaking. It’s really sad when you are forced to choose between bad urban design and vacant land, especially on such an important block.
I find it interesting, though, that of all the Grove NIMBY complaints, I haven’t heard any objections over the elephantine parking allotments that will surely contribute disproportionately to increased traffic congestion in the area.
3 Responses to The Saga Continues for Grove Station Project
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The project was originally way too big and had too much parking. It makes sense to have such large developments on roads like US-1 and next to a Metro-Rail Station. There are always people in any neighborhood that don’t want things to change or don’t want any progress. I think that if the building is made to meet LEED standards like all new large scale buildings in Miami, and it is sized appropriate to the neighborhood it should not be too much of an issue. It also appears that some of the parking would be for commuters at the Metro-Rail station, is that not correct? From the pictures it looks like it would be directly on top of the current parking lot.
Anon,
I agree very much. Commissioner Sanchez, the lone dissenting vote to send the project back, said it best: “I couldn’t think of a better site for high intensity, transit-oriented development”.
Other than the parking, the only insane notion here is a garage/parking for commuters. It is only TWO STOPS from Brickell. We’re talking about 2 or 3 miles here. Park n’ rides are for suburbs and long distant commuter rail trips.
Plans for the Metrorail site were developed through public meetings and charrettes in 1998. The developer was awarded the lease in January 2001 but sat on it until Summer 2006. Nothing to do with NIMBYs but some internal thing with his partners.
At that point he proposed a new development wildly different from what was agreed – 30+ story buildings and square footage rivaling the DATRAN complex. The county RTDIC reduced that to 200 feet but for some reason omitted from the standards the requirement for mixed use: it required no housing, just office and retail.
The Miami City Council rejected that and sent it back to the RTDIC suggesting that housing be required and that it be required that the building be built to LEED Energy Efficiency standards in exchange for the increase in height from what was originally in the Lease.
The tone of the Herald article was very biased in favor of the developer. The project is certainly not “indefinitely delayed.” The new standards will be voted on by the RTDIC at its next meeting and it should then sail through the Miami City Commission.