A new portion of the Underline has opened beneath the Metrorail and across from Coconut Grove with space for community events, bike rentals, food trucks, and more.
Music, snacks, coffee, giant Legos and speeches were all part of a block party last Saturday marking the completion of another portion of the Underline, an evolving $150-million linear park being built beneath the Metrorail tracks next to U.S. 1.
The addition of this three-block segment means the Underline now stretches for about four continuous miles from Miami’s Brickell neighborhood to Southwest 27th Avenue.
Saturday’s ribbon-cutting also brings park organizers another step closer toward completing a ten-mile-long green corridor that will reach Dadeland South Station near Pinecrest.
But finishing this latest part of Underline isn’t just a milestone.
Dubbed Inter Grove Gallery, after Brazilian online bank and financial app Inter, the segment between Southwest 24th and 27th avenues is also a designated communal space where special events like farmers markets will be held frequently.
“It’s one of our largest amenities today – 150,000 square feet,” said Lisle Bowen, chief marketing officer for Friends of the Underline, a nonprofit organization that supports the construction and upkeep of the linear park.
Open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, Inter Grove Gallery has a bike-share station where people can rent bikes for about $8.50 an hour.
There’s a bocce ball court. There are green seating areas. And there is Milagros at the Temple of Abundance, a mural painted on eight Metrorail columns by artist Alexandre Arrechea just in time for the November 1 opening.
The murals are just the start of a larger art program, organizers say. Indeed, additional columns that don’t already have the names of corporate sponsors may eventually have murals of their own.
“There’s 1,200 columns on the Underline, they are the ultimate canvas for expression, for storytelling and culture in Miami, and they are visible by everyone who drives past on their bike or on the road on U.S. 1,” said Jake Moskowitz, chief innovation officer at Friends of The Underline.
Meanwhile, the nonprofit and its partners have started holding events at Inter Grove Gallery since October – something that was requested by Coconut Grove and Silver Bluff residents.
“They wanted more food trucks and marketplaces, farmers markets, and vintage clothes-like [pop up] places where they can come and interact and really make this neighborhood even more walkable,” Moskowitz said.
Making the Metrorail corridor more walkable, and neighborhoods more connected, is the whole purpose of the Underline, said Meg Daly, founder of the Friends.
Daly said she came up with the idea more than 10 years ago as she recovered from a bicycle accident and two broken arms. To get to physical therapy, she had to take the Metrorail. And while she walked beneath the tracks, she was struck by how few people used the existing bike path, called M-Path. Daly’s campaign to improve the corridor soon drew in friends, neighbors, philanthropists, business leaders, and elected officials.
“You listen, you listen, you listen, and then you design, you design, you design,” Daly said. Seeing the completed portions of the Underline is a “dream come true,” she added, especially Inter Grove Gallery.
“U.S. 1 divides communities and now you have a reason for people in Coconut Grove to [meet] residents from Silver Bluff in this shared space,” Daly said.
The Underline has been coming to life one segment at a time. The first phase near and around Brickell Metrorail Station was completed in February 2021 and includes amenities such as a game room, a sound stage and plaza, a butterfly garden, an urban gym and a flex court for soccer and basketball.
The second phase, which includes Vizcaya Station and winds through The Roads and Silver Bluff, opened in April 2024 and includes the 2-mile-long Hammock Trail, a playground, and the Rain Garden.
Plus, there are new bike racks, bike repair facilities, free Wi-Fi, LED lighting, hydration stations for people and dogs, and doggie bag dispensers throughout the finished segments.
Daly is especially proud of the Florida vegetation that will serve as pollinators for bees and butterflies. “Have you seen all the native plants and trees? We’ll have 500,000 of them and 11 micro-forests when we’re fully built out,” Daly told the crowd just prior to the Saturday’s event.
In addition, it isn’t just Inter Grove Gallery that recently came online.
Near the Douglas Road Metrorail Station, the Underline Plaza was finished in October with an urban beach seating area and beach sand. And a few blocks away, a dog park awaits final inspections from the City of Coral Gables, Moskowitz said.
For now, the Underline between the Coconut Grove and Douglas Road Metrorail stations remains a work in progress. Eulois Cleckley, chief executive officer of the Friends, said organizers hope to finish that segment in the first half of 2026.
Clarice Cooper, president of the Coconut Grove Village West Homeowners and Tenants Association (HOATA), said she’s been supportive of the Underline from the beginning.
“I’ve had the distinction of going on the High Line in New York City and this is, you know, a replication of that,” she said. “The Underline will bring more connectivity as far as the different parts of the Grove.”
The Underline has already helped boost foot traffic for LnS Gallery, which has operated at 2610 SW 28th Lane for eight years. One of the entrances for LnS Gallery, which held a fundraiser for Arrechea to paint his mural on the Metrorail columns back in March, happens to be directly on the new Inter Grove Gallery.
“The accessibility, being able to walk it and bike, it’s really quite fantastic,” said LnS Gallery owner Sergio Cernuda. “And we expected it would help foot traffic, but more importantly, we’re just happy to see that it’s activated.”
Daily Bread Marketplace, a Middle Eastern and Mediterranean shop and restaurant at 2400 SW 27th Ave., has seen a boost in business as well, said manager Kevin Castillo. It’s certainly an improvement over the previous M-Path, he added. “I feel like, right now, it’s a better look, especially for people that drive by U.S. 1, you know.”
But those improvements don’t come cheap. Of the $150 million it will cost to build the Underline, just over $129 million was paid for by taxpayers, including $66.24 million from Miami-Dade County, $22.36 million from the U.S. Department of Transportation, $17.04 million from state sources, $16.03 million from the City of Miami, and $7.38 million from the City of Coral Gables, according to the Friends.
And that’s just the cost of construction. It may cost as much as $11 million a year to maintain the park, provide security and programming, Friends CEO Cleckley said.
“And as we grow, those numbers become more refined,” he added.
And the Underline might well grow beyond its original plans. Miami-Dade County Commissioner Raquel Regalado announced Saturday that she plans to propose extending the Underline toward Ludlam Trail and Snapper Creek in Kendall.
The Underline has received support from private sources as well. Billionaire Ken Griffin, who relocated his Citadel and Citadel Securities firms from Chicago to Miami in 2022, donated $5 million. Private developers with projects near the Underline kicked in at least $600,000. Other corporate donors include Inter, Baptist Health South Florida, Florida Power & Light, and Swire.
“This is a unique hybrid model, especially for a public space. We receive funding from donors and gifts from philanthropists and from individuals. We apply for a ton of grants, and we receive funding from foundations and corporate sponsorships,” Moskowitz said.
The Friends also collects revenue from vendors doing business in the park.
“There’s a variety of different negotiated agreements that we have, depending on what the need is,” Cleckley said. There’s also a revenue sharing agreement with Inter regarding the bike share stations, he added.
According to Inter’s website, the digital bank plans to set up as many 14 Inter Bike stations along the Underline. Inter also operates an Inter Café in Brickell that provides coffee and croissants. A second Inter Café, located inside a food trailer, made its debut at the Inter Grove Gallery on Saturday.
So far, the Inter Café is the only food truck operating at the outdoor Inter Grove Gallery, although that will probably change. The space has the infrastructure to power and hold up to five food trucks and 20 vendors, Bowen said.
But like the rest of the Underline itself, the food truck element is still a work in progress.
“We are in the process of putting together a comprehensive strategy to see how we can curate food trucks long term,” Bowen explained.
The Underline is actually a public right-of-way. We must be very vigilant that the City of Miami doesn’t start counting the Underline’s acreage as a park, because then they’ll use that as an excuse to sell or lease real parkland to developers for high rise condos or soccer stadiums or museums or basketball arenas – as they’ve already done.
Elvis Cruz
Morningside