Though details are still scarce, the vision for a new mixed-use project near Coconut Grove Elementary School is dense, pedestrian friendly, and far more upscale than the strip of homespun retailers it will replace.
Walkable, interconnected, and decidedly upscale. That’s the development vision for a 1.7-acre parcel of land in Center Grove now occupied by a family-owned dry cleaners, a handful of other small businesses, and a row of single-family homes a stone’s throw from Coconut Grove Elementary School.
“A world class project,” promises Spencer Morris, president of Coral-Gables-based Allen Morris Company, one of three development partners overseeing the venture. He said the project’s name will be announced soon.
In an interview with the Spotlight, Morris described the project as a high-end “boutique” mixed-use development consisting of offices, retail space, and residential units. A five-story building will run along Grand Avenue from Matilda Street to the U.S. Post Office parking lot. Behind it, a three-story structure along Florida Avenue will replace a row of single-family homes built in the 1930s.
Food and beverage will be a heavy component, Morris explained, with an emphasis on local and regional operators that “can bring the Coconut Grove feel.” Miami-based Oppenheim Architecture + Design is leading the design team.
Everything planned, he adds, is allowed under the city’s existing zone code. No variances or zoning changes are needed.
Central to the design is a “paseo” – a pedestrian promenade lined with restaurants and cafes – that will bisect the development’s two planned buildings at ground-level and link to Fuller Street, across Grand Avenue, to form a seamless, walkable exchange from Main Highway to Oak Avenue’s Kirk Munroe Park.
The goal, according to Morris: “Engage the pedestrian.”
The plan, Morris says, imagines a permanent closure of Fuller Street to vehicle traffic and a pedestrian-friendly redesign funded, in part, by his development team.
That team includes Joseph Harrison III, whose family-owned company owns the property now housing the popular Barracuda Taphouse & Grill, H&H Jewelers, and the detlev hair salon.
The development group also is negotiating with City of Miami officials over a major redesign of Kirk Munroe Park that would activate existing open space with walking paths, sitting areas, a playground, and small café. Morris said he envisions the park hosting small-scale events like outdoor movies and a “high-end farmers market.”
While the tennis courts would remain, Morris has pitched the idea of converting one of the existing five courts to accommodate padel ball (pickleball is too noisy, he says), of which he is an avid player.
Concept drawings by the Coral Gables-based landscape architecture firm Naturalficial show two possible redesigns, but Morris says he is eager for more community input.
Morris declined to say how much the development partners would contribute towards improvements at the park and Fuller Street.
He also declined to specify the structure of the development deal whose partners, in addition to Harrison and the Allen Morris Company, include the Espinosa family, the long-time owners and operators of Coconut Grove Laundry & Cleaners. The family, through a holding company, owns nearly all of the land slated for development.
Morris says the project will balance the rising demand in Coconut Grove for high-end office, housing and retail while also benefiting the existing community.
“We’re strongly committed to building something highly contextual that will be good for the neighborhood,” he said.
Coconut Grove was already turning into a soulless shell of itself and this will be the final nail in the coffin. Remember folks, money does not buy class!
Last I checked, there were people living in those 1930s houses on Florida Ave. This developer either has misconceptions about private rights to eminent domain or is very confident that they will be selling out.
Correction: the houses are owned by the family that’s selling. They are gone too; I am sorry for the renters.
Can we have just a regular farmers market? Or does it have to be a high end one?
I strongly urge the Coconut Grove community to review the proposed park plans. They turn a functional, kid-friendly park with an iconic Banyan tree where kids can run around safely with a fence on Florida Avenue, a practice wall and tennis courts used for kids after school programs (and are nearly always full) into an oolite rock dominated promenade that looks more like Lincoln Road or the landscaping at Grove at Grand Bay.
We don’t need more high-end restaurants and retail. The current tenants of the buildings serve actual daily functions for Grove residents — UPS, dry cleaning, a pharmacy and quick stop and the Last Carrot and Sapore di Mare are two of the most popular (and affordable) food establishments in Coconut Grove. As everyone who has commented on these articles has noted, pretty soon everything on Grand Avenue will just look the same and reflect the bland corporate culture that exists everywhere else and not actually serve the community that surrounds it.
Sadly, there aren’t enough people to protest what the city is doing to our village. They will continue to cut down hundred-year-old oaks to make way for lot-line cube houses and greenlight developments that close entire swaths of sidewalks. The essence of what made the Grove so great is disappearing. We have Brickell as a model of what will happen to our sleepy village: a sloppy collection of too-tall buildings and impassable roads. It’s time for the Grove to secede.