Waterfront Master Plan meeting tomorrow
The Waterfront Master Plan will be presented to the City's Waterfront Advisory Board tomorrow before going before the Miami City Commission on July 24 for a vote. The meeting is at 6:30 pm at City Hall (3500 Pan American Drive).
There were quite a few concerns over the past three years, but the long drawn out process may finally be over and most seem to be pleased with the new plans. How to pay for it is the main issue now.
The Expo Center, which now houses movie studios, including sets and production facilities for "Burn Notice" is set to be demolished in favor of green space and possibly an amphitheater.
I would also love for someone to stand up for the Expo Center and keep it as a movie studio. I feel it's a great, clean industry which brings in revenue in these hard economic times. I love green space more than anything, but if it ain't broke, don't fix it in the Expo Center instance. I blogged about this before. You can read it here.
If you would like to email the City Commissioners about keeping the Expo Center as a movie studio, their email addresses are here.
There were quite a few concerns over the past three years, but the long drawn out process may finally be over and most seem to be pleased with the new plans. How to pay for it is the main issue now.
The Expo Center, which now houses movie studios, including sets and production facilities for "Burn Notice" is set to be demolished in favor of green space and possibly an amphitheater.
I would also love for someone to stand up for the Expo Center and keep it as a movie studio. I feel it's a great, clean industry which brings in revenue in these hard economic times. I love green space more than anything, but if it ain't broke, don't fix it in the Expo Center instance. I blogged about this before. You can read it here.
If you would like to email the City Commissioners about keeping the Expo Center as a movie studio, their email addresses are here.
posted by Tom Falco at 12:05 PM
YOU MAY NOT LIFT THE PHOTOS & TEXT. IT'S COPYRIGHTED INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY. YOU CAN HOWEVER SHARE A STORY ON SOCIAL MEDIA BY USING THE LINKS HERE.
For linking to this one story, just click on the time it was posted & just this story will open for sharing - only through social media. Not copying and pasting.
22 Comments:
If a plan to improve the Expo center can be made I might support it. Maybe add an open air restaurant in the back or something the community can use. As it stands, it is ugly, barely maintained and provides no features a resident can enjoy. It is great that it helps businesses but I'd rather have my ocean front back. Film all you want around the Grove and in the new eye catching park to be built in its place that everyone can enjoy!
tear the thing down. How about converting all the extra space in mayfair to a sound stage. It will kill two birds with one stone. I want more open space.
As one who worked in the film industry, I wouldn't recommend basing the city's long-range plans on such a fickle enterprise as a television series, especially one on a third-rate cable network. Sorry -- I like the show, and think that Gabrielle Anwar is hot-hot-hot! -- but Burn Notice is bound to run its course within a year or two. We need to think more about what we want in that spot over the long-haul.
I am in favor of keeping the Expo Center - Burn Notice brought Marley and Me, a full blown movie with top stars. C'mon you saw them around town filming, you saw the publicity it brought to Miami and the Grove. Let's fix the bldg, it is the only place around we have free parking. We can put a community center in the Expo Center and have a meeting place for all of us We have Peacock Park that is underused.
If the building wasn't there already I would say more green space. But it's there, let's use it. More than just Burn Notice is filmed there, Renee Zelwiger, Jennifer Aniston and others used it this spring for their movies too. I say keep the movie/tv industry in the Grove.
from what i've read in the herald most of the film industry subsidies have been cut from the state budget for next year. those subsidies are what have brought the lastest film boom, i think burn notice got somewhere in the neighborhood of $5 million in rebates from the state last year, without that they're bound to find a state that will pony up.
There must be an appropriate location for a film studio in Miami, but the Expo Center isn’t it. The building is unsafe and needs extensive renovation if it were to be kept. A film studio is not a water dependent use and could be anywhere in Miami. We need park space along the water and ways for residents from all over the City to walk or bike or picnic or get out in small boats and enjoy being on the water.
I love Burn Notice and agree we should try to keep it here. I also agree it would be great for Miami to have a film studio to continue to attract this and other shows. There’s no reason the Grove can’t benefit from the impact of a film studio even if it is located in a different part of town. Burn Notice films all over town, and we should be selling the Grove to location scouts as a place to film on location, both for this production and others. We should be positioning our hotels and rental properties as “the place” to live in Miami so the cast and out-of-town crew for film productions live in the Grove and not in South Beach (as the Marley cast did), and frequent our stores and restaurants. Our residents who work in the industry will get the work whether or not the studio is at the Expo Center, if the show stays in Miami.
If it is not already doing so, perhaps the City could locate an appropriate site and find a way to fund a film studio in Miami. If it’s in a neighborhood with lower real estate values and economic needs (such as Overtown or Liberty City?), perhaps there could be funding opportunities for economic development which would help with the cost and ultimately with keeping the tenant, which as you I may know is only paying about $6,000 a month to use the Expo Center. In most cities, film studios are in warehouse districts. Maybe we have one that would work for a more permanent facility.
Why not knock every building in the Grove down so we can have more park space?
Leave the movie studio alone. Fix it up and keep it where it is.
Len Scinto:
I think that the coast line, altered as it may be, is a gift of geology. This is the "southern" shoreline for not only our City but the U.S.A. I'm not against business, especially film/television (My Sister and her husband are both professional wardrobe/costume/makeup artists with many films and theatrical credits). But why use waterfront for businesses that can be located anywhere? I have the same problem with Freshmarket - a store I really like- but it's a grocery store that has no windows situated in an area with a great view...It just doesn't make sense. We should enjoy Nature's bounty while minimizing our impact.
That land is zoned PARKS & RECREATION (PR). An off-limits movie studio does not add to the public's enjoyment of our priceless waterfront. It was a mistake to build it at that location in the first place. Let's return that parcel to its rightful use.
I'm all for supporting the film industry... but that can be done at any dark warehouse... not in a park by the Bay.
You know that wonderful invention called Googlemaps? Use it to locate beautiful downtown Burbank, in South California, near a town called "Hollywood". Please note lack of waterfront!
Now veer the mouse over a tad to the left, right about where Malibu is. Please note, no large warehouse buildings. Rest my case. --Margot Channing
Sorry Grape, but I think that if there's a chance of demolishing that ugly Expo Center and make a really great park with features that I, as a taxpayer, can use and enjoy, let's take it.
There's not really any indication that Burn Center will exist in 1 year and a film could be shot in Hialeah just as well.
Park with an amphitheater, yes.
I vote to move the City of Miami Commission out of the Pan Am building and into the Convention center. They can share it with the studio's and open up the Pan Am for a museum, and cafe or something we can all enjoy. I think this hits all the points needed. Get prime space back to the residents, continue to have local income come in and the requirement to still maintain large offices for the City of Miami (which should be in downtown but thats another discussion).
But it was okay for the City to restore City Hall where only the Commissioners and the Mayor and the City Manager and the high paid city officials can enjoy the view of the waterfront - why not tear that down also? Bring it to the voters.
How about a 37,000 seat, retractable-roof film studio on the site of the old Orange Bowl?
Why the rush to push the Sasaki plan thru this week - a Mayor's press conference???? - sounds suspect to me. Then on to the Waterfront Adv. Board for a vote and then before the Commission on the 24th - and where is this posted, where can the residents look at it online and study it? Not sitting right.
Rush? this has been out there for years. If this is rush, I hate to see slow. IMHO this should have been approved last year.
Anon 7/8, 12:41 must be a city employee.
I do agree with you that we should support more film production.
I also agree that a film studio does not need to be on waterfront property.
But I hope that you will agree with me that City Hall and unworthy politicians also don’t need to occupy prime waterfront property.
Let’s indeed find a warehouse in Wynwood or Overtown for a film studio.
Let’s also find a location in downtown for City Hall.
How ironic to read two Herald columns today.
One for the plans to improve the waterfront that includes demolishing the Coconut Grove Expo center and the other celebrating the positive financial effect the renting of it to BURN NOTICE has had.
Yesterday BURN NOTICE was filming on Grand Ave in front of the Coconut Grove Elementary School.
The Grove was filled with excitement and pride.
We could sure use more of that.
The only reason the Expo Center is in shambles is because Miami did not book enough events to help pay for its maintenance.
I like parks as much as anyone, but to allow that building to decay for lack of maintenance is a crime and burden on us taxpayers.
I understand that a community generates something like a 4 to 6 multiple on every dollar of incentive provided to the film industry.
It is a great economic generator of business and makes a huge profit or our community.
I can’t understand the logic in not continuing it.
We could sure use more film production and fewer condos.
Harry Emilio Gottlieb
Here's the deal...
Right now, the City has the funds in place to demolish the Expo Center but doesn't have a clue where the money is going to come from to carry out the redevelopment plan. The idea is to quickly pass (this Thurday) on tearing the place down so that the powers-that-be can chest thump that they are making progess. Meanwhile, the local economy is in the toilet and the loss of jobs caused by the loss of the building ain't gonna help.
Here's a suggestion...
Keep the building up for the short term, at least until the funds are in place for something beyond demolition. By and by, the economy will turn around, Burn Notice will leave town and things can proceed with the grand plan.
Here's what's likely to happen...
The plan to raze the building will pass on Thursday with minimal public notice and minimal chance for public input. There will be lip-service to the fact that the Waterfront Plan has resulted from hundreds of meeting, but little or no acknowledgment that today's economic reality might merit a slight delay in the demolition. There's a good reason why stuff like this comes up in the summer when no-one is around.
The waterfront is for the people not movie making that can be done anywhere. And I agree about FreshMarket. They could easily have a cafe or little restaurant to provide patrons with the view that they now block! Only in Miami would waterfront be ignored.
People who are all for demolishing the Expo Center are not seeing the big picture. Using the EC as a movie studio brings awareness to the Grove. Stuff like that always ends up in the papers because people are obsessed with Hollywood, celebrities, etc. It gives our little community some cachet. You could run into a celebrity on the Grove streets. Its a draw to the area and people gobble that crap up. Sure, a movie could be filmed in Hialeah as some suggested above, but who wants to go there when they could be on the waterfront in the Grove? If they clean up the joint and maybe have vines and plants covering the walls, much like the plan for the 3-story parking garage planned, I think it could be a nice asset to the Grove.
Post a Comment
<< Home