Seventh and Collins Parking Garage Miami Beach, Florida Project Type: Other Case No: C031004 Year: 2001 SUMMARY A public/private mixed-use development featuring unique architectural details, a six-level garage, and street-level retail space in the historic art deco South Beach neighborhood of Miami Beach, Florida. The exterior of the facility is laced with a curved and gridded fiberglass trellis and irrigated planter boxes with three types of native foliage. The trellis pattern represents horizontal waves reminiscent of the nearby ocean. Various living vines are planted along the facade, enveloping the garage in tropical greenery FEATURES High-end, street-level retail space Design that incorporates native vegetation Preservation of historic facades Public/private partnership Seventh and Collins Parking Garage Miami Beach, Florida Project Type: Mixed-Use Volume 31 Number 04 January-March 2001 Case Number: C031004 PROJECT TYPE A public/private mixed-use development featuring unique architectural details, a six-level garage, and street-level retail space in the historic art deco South Beach neighborhood of Miami Beach, Florida. The exterior of the facility is laced with a curved and gridded fiberglass trellis and irrigated planter boxes with three types of native foliage. The trellis pattern represents horizontal waves reminiscent of the nearby ocean. Various living vines are planted along the facade, enveloping the garage in tropical greenery. SPECIAL FEATURES High-end, street-level retail space Design that incorporates native vegetation Preservation of historic facades Public/private partnership DEVELOPER Goldman Properties 804 Ocean Drive Miami Beach, Florida 33139 305-531-4411 DESIGNER/BUILDER McCarthy Building Company 1341 North Rock Hill Road St. Louis, Missouri 63124-1498 314-968-3300 ARCHITECT Arquitectonica (ARQ) 1112 Fifth Street Miami Beach, Florida 33139 305-372-1812 STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING AND FUNCTIONAL DESIGN Desman Associates 49 West 37th Street, Fifth Floor New York, New York 10018 212-686-5360 LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT Rosenberg Design Group 12901 SW 71st Avenue Miami, Florida 33156 305-235-5310 GENERAL DESCRIPTION The Seventh and Collins Parking/Retail Facility, locally known as Ballet Valet, is the result of a public/private partnership between the city of Miami Beach and Goldman Properties to meet a strong demand for parking as well as to spur retail development in the booming South Beach area. The exterior of the six-level, 646-space parking garage is laced with a gridded, fiberglass trellis system and adorned with three varieties of native foliage. The greenery is planted in horizontal stripes to achieve a wave effect reminiscent of the nearby ocean. Nine specialty retail stores occupy the ground level. The garage opened in 1997 and broke even three months later, going on to become a financial success and a model for other garage projects in the area. The project has sparked new interest and investment in the surrounding area, turning Collins Avenue between Fifth and Eighth streets into the premier shopping district in South Beach. BACKGROUND AND HISTORY Originally developed in the 1920s, South Beach was in decline until its renaissance in the mid-1980s. Although the South Beach redevelopment stretched ten blocks up and down Ocean Drive, it remained only one block wide. While the art deco architectural treasures of South Beach were being restored to their original grandeur, dilapidated historic buildings one block west of the beach were being ignored and underused. Aided by its designation as a historic district—the first one named in the 20th century—by the National Register of Historic Places, South Beach was then protected by restrictive covenants and design reviews, in addition to the necessary bureaucracy that every permitting jurisdiction imposes. But even this coalition of historic preservationists, advocates of zero growth, and countless other special interest groups—along with a progressive city administration—recognized that the key to preserving South Beach’s character was to alleviate the density of the one-block-wide redevelopment effort on Ocean Drive by encouraging development in a westward direction. By the early 1990s, Miami–Dade County had become one of the world’s largest tourist destinations, and South Beach the United States’s foremost 24-hour entertainment district, with more than 20,000 visitors each day. More parking was needed, and a new parking structure would have the added benefit of attracting more new development. In 1992, the city issued a request for proposals (RFP) inviting developers to propose a creative parking solution. Miami Beach–based Goldman Properties, already the owner of a suitable development site one block from the beach, proposed a joint venture, with the city purchasing the rear portion of the land behind the street-level retail space and the air rights over the retail space for building a parking garage, with Goldman Properties maintaining ownership of the retail component. The developer, Tony Goldman, came to the South Beach area with the idea of turning it into an American Riviera. Through his development of other properties in the area, including the nearby Park Central Hotel located on Ocean Drive one block east of the garage site, and his involvement in local civic organizations, he noticed the need for more parking in South Beach, realizing that the area would not progress economically without it. Goldman Properties and the city of Miami Beach entered into a public/private partnership to develop the mixed-use project. The company assembled the properties and negotiated the city’s purchase of the western portion of the land for the parking garage and of the air rights over the retail portion to maximize available parking space. The city financed the parking structure with a construction loan from the state of Florida’s Gulf Breeze Loan Program and spent $11,500 per parking space for construction. The entire project cost was $11.3 million. PLANNING AND DESIGN An international design competition was held to solicit the best design for the project. Miami Beach–based Arquitectonica was chosen as the lead designer for the project. The firm’s design retained the existing historical facades of the retail and residential buildings that the project would replace, complementing the art deco style of South Beach. Relating to its subtropical, oceanside context, the parking structure was sheathed in a wavelike trelliswork and adorned with three species of south Florida foliage—clusia guttifera, silver buttonwood, scaveola fruitescents—with Washingtonian palm trees along the city sidewalk. The developer wanted to set the standard for the appearance of parking garages in urban centers. The design softens the visual impact of the size of the building and draws attention away from the fact that it is a garage, focusing on the pedestrian scale and environmental details. That it does not look like a garage behooves the area. Arquitectonica created the grid system that trains the plants in an upward growth pattern from a synthetic material made to withstand almost anything—including hurricanes. It was colored green in case the plants did not grow in as expected; the plants were not fully grown until two years after the facility opened. While Arquitectonica was responsible for the outside design of the project, Desman Associates, a New York City–based engineering firm, designed the garage’s interior. The garage, constructed from precast concrete, features larger-than-average parking spaces and turning radii, high-speed elevators, halide lighting, and a voice annunciation system. The garage has an automatic sprinkler system as well as a waterproof membrane between the second-floor parking garage and the first-floor retail space—both attributes that are rare in other garages. The retail component includes nine stores lining the ground-floor level of the garage facing Collins Avenue. It is comprised of a series of arcaded buildings of different heights to match the adjacent existing structures in elevation and floor plan. The stores range from one story to 1.5 to two stories in height. The historical facades of the retail portion were complemented by infill development in keystone and white canvas awnings. All stores have large display windows, and all signage is reverse-channel neon lit. Washingtonian palm trees line the sidewalk in front of the stores, which include the following: Vidal Sassoon, Nikeshop, MAC Cosmetics, Benetton, Laundry Industry, Nicole Miller, Gianni Giraux, Intermix, and Agnes B. The city approval process comprised 16 board hearings, including several visits to the design review board, historic preservation board, zoning review board, and the city commission, with the project achieving unanimous votes each time. However, negotiation was key to the success of the public/private partnership. The garage was the first air-rights project for the city. In order to close the deal, the developer went to the Miami Beach Commission meeting and offered a "one-day sale" during which he lowered the price for one day in a "take it or leave it" offer to the city. The commission voted to go forward with the project. Construction began one week later, and the project was finished on March 1, 1996. OPERATIONS AND MAINTENANCE The Gulf Breeze loans used to finance the parking garage enable the city to set aside profits from the garage into a separate fund for the maintenance of the facility and its greenery. The garage is operated independently from the rest of the garages in Miami’s parking system. It is the most profitable garage in the area, earning $2,500 per space each year. The city of Miami Beach maintains the property and greenery, ensuring that the foliage is clipped into a wavelike pattern. The cost to the city for maintaining the plants is approximately $25,000 per year. The city contracts out for parking attendants and supervisors from Standard Parking Inc., and an advanced revenue-control system is used to monitor how many parking spaces are open at all times.