Spotlight 159-251125

Good morning. What we’re covering in today’s Spotlight:

New Spots to Dine Out in the Grove
Village People: The Face of Grove Towers
A Backlash Against Runaway Growth
Voices: The City’s No Net Loss Fiasco

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Grove Bites: What’s New for the Season

After weathering a tough summer, the Grove restaurant scene is experiencing a refresh, with some casual options that are bringing new flavors to the mix.

By Carlos Frias

Restaurants in Miami, like hope, spring eternal.

Every new season brings new restaurants, even as rising rents, higher food costs, and fewer diners forced a rash of restaurant closures in Miami last summer, including nearly a dozen in Coconut Grove.

Many of those closures were pandemic pipe dreams. Out-of-town restaurateurs hoped to exploit the many new residents that moved to Miami with overbuilt, expensive generic restaurants.

Village People: Another Day in Paradise for Spencer Morrison

Morrison, the front desk supervisor at Grove Towers on South Bayshore Drive, celebrated 35 years on the job this month, establishing a legacy nearly as iconic as the building itself.

By Jenny Jacoby

Perched behind the front desk at Grove Towers in Coconut Grove, Spencer Morrison waits at the ready for whatever may be asked of him that day.

It’s often the same tasks: signing off on deliveries, monitoring security cameras, and greeting condominium residents on their way in or out of the building.

To Morrison, it’s another shift at the best job ever.

City Commissioners Signal Alarm Over Added Density — While Approving Another Increase

The Miami City Commission advanced a proposal allowing developers to double density in exchange for climate funding, even as commissioners voiced mounting unease with the pace, scale, and consequences of Miami’s ongoing development push.

By David Villano & Jenny Jacoby

The Miami City Commission on Thursday advanced a controversial new ordinance to double allowable housing density in some areas, but not before signaling its growing frustration over runaway growth – fueled by a cascade of new pro-development zoning laws – that many worry is reshaping the city faster than infrastructure or neighborhoods can absorb.

“We’re so slow at taking action,” said Miami District 5 Commissioner Christine King, urging fellow commissioners to push back against county and state laws now in effect that override the city’s less permissive zoning code. “We need to stand up for our residents… the electorate body should be able to decide what is best for our community.”

Opinion: Were City Commissions Misled About A Park Ordinance?

The Miami City Commission voted in 2023 to require that public land lost to development be replaced. But one resident who championed the law says city records suggest commissioners were unaware of last-minute changes that neutered the legislation’s intent.

By Elvis Cruz

David Villano’s excellent Nov. 17, 2025 story detailed how the City of Miami used a not-on-the-agenda “substitution memo” to eviscerate the “No Net Loss” ordinance for park land. That ordinance was supposed to require replacing – with newly acquired land – any park land lost to any other use (like the 73 acres at the former Melreese golf course when it was turned over to the soccer stadium scam).

During the public hearing for the first reading of the ordinance at the Miami City Commission on Sept. 14, 2023, I gave a PowerPoint presentation you can see here, in which I warned against using city-owned land to circumvent the intent and spirit of the law. As per the city’s verbatim minutes (page 12) I said, “Pre-existing public land should not be allowed to count for no net loss of park land.”