Miami-Dade wants Parcel B for an open space park — and parking?

As promised in the last couple of weeks, Miami-Dade Commission Chairwoman Audrey Edmonson moved Wednesday to block development of a Cuban Museum of History or anything else on the last few remaining slivers of vacant waterfront land downtown behind the AA Arena.

“The residents want this because this is one of the last pieces of waterfront property left undeveloped,” said Edmonson, who also promised to find a site for the Cuban museum organizers had hoped to build there.

But is she protecting public land or the arena operators’ spill-off parking and event-staging area?

According to the resolution that passed unanimously and is now headed to the full county commission, Parcel B, as the 2.76 acres plot of land between the arena and Biscayne Bay is called, would be preserved as an open space park for an increasing number of downtown residents to enjoy Frisbee, family picnics and pick-up soccer games. It would be renamed Don Paul Plaza after the late longtime advocate of open, green, public spaces.

Wait a minute. Plaza? A plaza is not a park. A plaza is, well, a public square or marketplace in most U.S. cities and also could mean a shopping center here. So what gives?

It seems part of the deal includes allowing Basketball Properties Ltd, which operates and manages the American Airlines Arena, to continue to use at least part of Parcel B for overflow parking and those big trucks that need to come in for concert equipment and catering on an “agreed-upon” number of days. The resolution only prohibits any “permanent vertical structure,” which means that temporary trailers are a-okay. In one version of the park renderings, according to an inside county source, there is a designated space for up to 70 cars and staging vehicles.

Ladra guesses that loose soccer balls and wayward Frisbees could be a liability on agreed-upon days.

The American Airlines Arena was built by the Miami Heat organization on the former Florida East Coast property that was purchased by the county in 1998 after voters approved a referendum in 1996. A key point of the Heat campaign back then was a promise that part the property would be turned into a waterfront open space park. This condition– as well as a youth academy that has also not materialized but which Edmonson seems to forgive — was a crucial deal breaker to many county voters. Campaign insiders from that former Mayor Alex Penelas period have been quoted as saying that it was a key strategy message to get the Anglo votes.

After failing to produce a park — or, rather, realizing that it would cost $6 million to repair the seawall — the Heat gave the land back to the county in 2003, but continued to lease it for extra parking and staging at special events. That way, we taxpayers were responsible for the wall, but the arena operators — who continued to rip us off by inflating expenses to reduce participation rent — could keep using the land as needed.

Parcel B sprung back into the news in 2014 when became embroiled in Plan B for international soccer star David Beckham‘s desired Miami MLS franchise stadium, which, if you remember, just had to be waterfront and just had to be in the downtown — two requirements since abandoned. After the first location scouted at the Port of Miami was scrapped, the Beckham group proposed filling in the boat slip between Museum Park and the arena to create space for a waterfront stadium. That idea was nipped in the bud by then Mayor Tomas Regalado of Miami, which owns the boat slip.

Months later, Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez was instructed by the commission to negotiate with the Cuban Exile History Museum board to lease the land, and county staffers began drafting a 55-year lease was that would provide public land only at a ridiculous price and no other subsidies.

In 2015, activists with the Urban League, Emerge Miami and other groups basically took over the property and staged a picnic protest — complete with a sign naming it Dan Paul Park (not plaza). There were areas that had been paved over for a street race and the lot was padlocked when the activists first arrived.

Fast forward three years when, as recently as last February, the commission instructed Gimenez to enter into a license agreement with Basketball Properties Ltd. as the manager and operator of the American Airlines Arena, “for its use during agreed-upon days of the property commonly known as Parcel B for parking and staging for arena events.” They didn’t want to keep asking for permits every time so they got a license.

The county started installing grass and trees in the lot.

Then in June of last year, the 55-year lease for the Cuban museum was briefly on the draft agenda, but — even though renderings for the museum include park space — it was pulled because there was not enough support and because the museum board failed to raise enough funds for construction.

And maybe because their renderings did not include overflow parking and event staging space for the arena? (Editor’s note: Commissioner Esteban Bovo has reported that the Cuban Exile History Museum design did accommodate the arena’s need for overflow parking and a staging area.)

Who is Edmonson really representing? In 2015, when another commissioner suggested that the Heat and anyone else who wanted to lease the land pay market rates with a fee schedule for different events, Edmonson balked, intimating that because the waterfront property is in her district, it’s her say.

On Wednesday, she also proposed and passed an ordinance — which is much stronger as an actual law as opposed to just an expression of the desire, which is what a resolution is — that requires a two-thirds commission vote for any future private development of waterfront land.

Doesn’t that mean the plaza isn’t permanent? It can be undone with a two thirds vote? Are we right back where we started?

Audrey Edmonson, Parcel B, public land, waterfront

Miami-Dade wants Parcel B for an open space park — and parking? added by Ladra on February 14, 2019
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