Residents To Define Identity of A Miami Billion Dollar Baby - Miami Beach Convention Center Part III

Today we conclude the comparison between the proposals for the Miami Beach Convention Center.  The city wants to attract not only bigger meetings and shows, but also non-conventioneers -- all without sucking commerce from adjacent Lincoln Road Mall, choking the area with traffic, or creating yet another depopulated island cut off from the surrounding street life. Each team started with sharply distinct visions about how to accomplish that.

CENTRAL SPACE ACE PLAN: Places an open plaza at the convention center and hotel's main entrance, flanked by a half-moon-shaped food and beverage building, a 60-foot-tall cultural and exhibition building, and a revamped Gleason theater.

CENTRAL SPACE PORTMAN PLAN: Creates a rectangular "Miami Beach Square" defined by the ballroom building, a 61,000-square-foot Latin American cultural museum and retail building, City Hall and the convention center. The square would be shaded by overhanging building corners and umbrella-like structures.

RESIDENTIAL ACE PLAN: On Meridian Avenue, the plan puts 260 apartments in two 60-foot buildings and two 120-foot buildings. The taller buildings are pushed away from Meridian. Eighty more units on top of the 17th Street garage would be built later.

RESIDENTIAL PORTMAN PLAN: Along Washington Avenue, 200 units are built into the convention center's facade. On Meridian, the plan puts 100 apartments in four lower-scale buildings, each four stories. The buildings recede from the street towards the Holocaust Memorial.

BALLROOM ACE PLAN: A 60,000-square-foot ballroom adjacent to meeting rooms tops the northwest end of the convention center. Above it, a separate 40,000-square-foot ballroom can be divided into smaller spaces. Both have outdoor terraces.

BALLROOM PORTMAN PLAN: A 60,000-square-foot ballroom occupies a separate two-story building that fronts the public square and convention center. Minor ballrooms are located in the main convention center building.

CULTURAL CENTER ACE PLAN: Included a cultural building from the start, but a new design calls for a two-level, 18,000-square-foot exhibition gallery.

CULTURAL CENTER PORTMAN PLAN: A 38,100-square-foot museum space is dedicated to Latin American culture. The building includes additional ground-floor retail, city office space and recording studios, for a total of 61,000-square feet.

Do you prefer the ACE or the MBS plan?

To see all the plans on the projects you should visit the Miami Herald at http://www.miamiherald.com/static/media/projects/convention-center-comparison/ * Sources HuffPost Miami & Miami Herald.

To Buy, Sell or Rent Properties in Miami go to http://www.JuanSolerRealtor.com  

Residents To Define Identity of A Miami Billion Dollar Baby - Miami Beach Convention Center Part II

As Miami Beach embarks on an ambitious push to overhaul the convention center and develop the surrounding sea of parking lots, it's become one of the biggest opportunities for urban renewal in the country -- a 52-acre blank slate bordering some of the hottest real estate and tourism anywhere.

The city’s goal: to select a team that will overhaul its outdated, city-owned convention center, and add ballroom space and an attached hotel to make the center more competitive. The convention center is the third largest economic driver in the county, Blumberg has said, and helps fill Miami Beach hotels, which in turn pay bed taxes to the city.  All the recommendations for the ACE or the MBS proposals are just fodder for city commissioners, who will likely choose a team during a meeting on July 17. Residents will make the ultimate decision, with a vote expected in November.

Here you can see the main difference between the ACE and the Miami Beach Square proposals:

CONVENTION CENTER ACE PLAN: Moves the main entrance to the southwest corner, orienting the convention center toward a new public plaza, and beyond that to Lincoln Road Mall. Ballrooms with outdoor terraces are incorporated into the convention center on upper floors.

CONVENTION CENTER PORTMAN PLAN: Keeps the main convention center entrances on the west side and adds a hotel entrance at Washington Avenue. The main ballroom is in a detached building that includes outdoor meeting space fronting a garden, with two minor ballrooms incorporated into the convention center.

RETAIL ACE PLAN: Puts the bulk of its 60,000 square feet of retail on the ground floor of the 17th Street Garage. Another 40,000 square feet of restaurant space would go into the half-moon building.

RETAIL PORTMAN PLAN: Retail pavilions in the central square have planted green roofs that slope down to meet the ground. Additional retail goes into the 17th Street Garage, Gleason theater and cultural building. Portman says retail space totals 125,000 square feet.

HOTEL ACE PLAN: The hotel, shown here from 17th Street, wraps around the convention center's southwest corner, rising gradually to a top height of 194 feet at the point. An expansive pool deck offers views of the Beach shoreline.

HOTEL PORTMAN PLAN: The hotel, seen here from Washington Avenue, wraps around the south end of the convention center, reaching a height of 124 feet at the eastern corner, lower than ACE's plan. The pool deck sits inside the square "U" frame of the hotel.

PARK SPACE ACE PLAN: The 5-acre park gradually rises 80 feet to meet the convention center roofline, concealing an underground parking garage and truck loading bays. Green space said to total 29 acres.

PARK SPACE PORTMAN PLAN: A 4.5-acre park at ground level is bisected by an extension of 20th Street, which leads vehicles into parking and loading bays within the convention center. Green space said to total 26 acres, including rooftops.

To see all the plans on the projects you should visit the Miami Herald at http://www.miamiherald.com/static/media/projects/convention-center-comparison/ * Sources HuffPost Miami & Miami Herald.

To Buy, Sell or Rent Properties in Miami go to http://www.JuanSolerRealtor.com  

Residents Will Define Identity of A Miami Billion Dollar Baby - Miami Beach Convention Center Part I

The Miami Beach Convention Center, the giant box with a smidge of architectural flair that probably looked modern when it was built in 1957, is in dire need of a makeover.

The City of Miami Beach is currently vetting two proposed convention center renovations, each costing a billion dollars of public and private money, and will announce the winner in the coming days.

Ace Central Space

One is dubbed South Beach ACE (Arts, Culture, Entertainment) and is a collaboration between Rem Koolhaas's OMA firm; Tishman, who are building the new World Trade Center in New York; UIA; MVVA; Raymond Jungles; and TVS.

Ace Convention Center

ACE will rotate the convention center to face the Jackie Gleason Theater, which will be renovated to include a two-sided stage. A hotel will sit on top of the convention hall, curving like the Fontainebleau.

Ace Hotel

 Ace Residences

The parking lot will be covered by a new, elevated park that will cleverly disguise 44 truck loading bays and 1,000 cars.

The other proposal by BIG, West 8, Fentress, JPA, and Portman CMC, is dubbed Miami Beach Square for the open space situated in the middle of the convention center and hotel, the Jackie Gleason Theater, City Hall, a Latin American Museum, and a botanical ballroom.

Miami Beach Square Convention Center

MBS  Hotel 

Although their original plan converted the historic Jackie Gleason Theater into the convention hotel, after public outcry, the team revised to keep the theater and open it up at the street level. The hotel now sits adjacent to the convention hall, sharing the same roof.

MBS Residential

Most interestingly, however, is that this proposal includes a giant canvas on top of the convention center that will rotate with new artwork to be seen by hotel guests above, airplanes, and Google Earth.

Both plans connect the convention center to surrounding attractions like the Holocaust Museum, Miami Beach Botanical Gardens, Soundscape Park, and Lincoln Road.

The two projects would both cost around $1.2 billion dollars to build although the Miami Beach Square team says theirs would rely on less on public funding and generate $80 million more revenue for the city, reports the Miami Herald.

And while the Miami Square project includes a shorter hotel that blends in more with the low profile on the existing Miami Beach cityscape, the ACE project boasts more public space and less of a building footprint.

In the next couple of day we'll continue to this series on the South Beach Convention Center presenting both proposals in more detail.  To see all the plans on the projects you should visit the Miami Herald at http://www.miamiherald.com/static/media/projects/convention-center-comparison/ * Sources HuffPost Miami & Miami Herald.

To Buy, Sell or Rent Properties in Miami go to http://www.JuanSolerRealtor.com