South Florida On The Market

Miami is boarding an exciting railway journey that could transform down-town’s west side into a thriving urban hub with commerce to complement the residential and office zone nearer Biscayne Bay. The trick will be for the engineers to wear bifocals that focus on big-picture benefits while simultaneously spotting flaws in the tracks that could derail the express. As a reader of Miami Today, you know that these changes center on a railway station district whose zoning and control are being hashed out by the City of Miami and Miami-Dade County, with the aim of handing the throttle to the county but brakes to the city. The next stop is the county commission April 8. The nearly 10-acre district is owned by Florida East Coast Industries, whose All Aboard Florida is to link Miami and Orlando in a private venture that should let rail travel compete in speed, comfort, safety and revenues with aviation. The railroad’s depot zone near county hall is also geared to attract almost every use

P ort of Miami intends to tear down and relocate or remodel several of its warehouses. “Nearly every warehouse is destined to be knocked down and relocated in the next five years,” said Kevin Lynskey, assistant port director. One warehouse was used by a stevedoring group, two are used by customs, one was an old refrigerated warehouse, and another is the Marine Spill Response Corp.’s facility. The marine spill facility is required at the port to respond to and cleanup a marine spill. “There isn’t a priority list, but almost every one of them we’re going to let [go of] in the next few years,” Mr. Lynskey said. The reasons behind the relocation of each, he said, vary – the stevedoring building is in disrepair, the refrigerated warehouse is no longer used for its original purpose because there are refrigerated shipping containers, the customs buildings are outdated and the marine spill building has six times more space than it needs – but what it comes down to is that as the port