The area known as the Doral Tile District may one day become known as the Doral Design District.

The city wants to turn a square mile in the southeast of Doral into a pedestrian friendly, bustling district.

Mayor Juan Carlos Bermudez said the plan, still in its early stages, will hopefully bring a mix of business and recreation seen in other cities, namely Coral Gables.

“The idea is like with Miracle Mile and Coral Gables, you’re invested in it. Business owners and residents having a working relationship is a step toward the community they want to promote,” Bermudez said.

Officials envision the Doral Design District — not to be confused with the upscale galleries, shops and stores of Miami’s Design District — as a one-stop locale for anyone planning to take on design projects for their home or office by mixing the tile and marble industry with architects, engineers, interior designers, and artisans.

On Dec. 14, the Doral City Council approved spending $120,000 to put up four 30-foot high entryway monuments on Northwest 36th Street and Northwest 25th Street with landscaping and lighting.

Banners were also installed on those streets in October.

The concept would marry retail enterprise with the import-export industry the city is known for.

“Right now what we are trying to do is for the business owners and merchants to be proactive versus the merchants coming to the city,” said Bettina Aguilera-Rodriguez, economic development coordinator.

Nathan Kogon, director of planning and zoning, said the city held workshops property owners while drafting the city’s master plan, which serves as sort of zoning blueprint for municipalities.

Former Doral Councilman Robert Van Name introduced the idea in 2004.

The would-be design district is bordered by the Palmetto Expressway on the east, Northwest 87th Avenue on the west, Northwest 25th Street on its south side, and Northwest 41st Street on the north.

Kogon says the area is not pedestrian-friendly. A traffic signal needs to be installed at the intersection at Northwest 79th Street and Northwest 33rd Street

The Doral Steering Committee, established August 2010, has been working on the project for the past year to gain support from the city and business owners, such as starting a Merchant’s Association. Sign-ups were held at an early November meeting to boost public-private relationships.

“It was about introducing the players and reintroducing the idea of the Design District,” Melissa Tapanes said. Tapanes is the chairwoman of the Steering Committee, which is made up of community members nominated by the mayor and approved by the City Council.

The Steering Committee hopes to start a Doral Design District Street Fair on Northwest 79th Avenue next year. The event is expected to cost $50,000 of city money and would showcase art and design while highlighting the businesses, restaurants and products of Doral.

A Merchant’s Association would let businesses decide whether the city should create a business improvement district — and how much those businesses would pay in additional taxes intended to fund the Design District.

Aguilera-Rodriguez said 30 people signed up to be a part of the Merchant’s Association at November meeting.

“We reached our goal, we had an incredible turnout,” Aguilera-Rodriguez said.

In May, the City Council unanimously designated the area between Northwest 82nd Avenue to Northwest 77th Court and Northwest 25th Street to Northwest 41st Street — frequently used for illegal dumping — as a “brownfield”, a label that refers to contaminated land on industrial sites that has the potential to be reused.

Tapanes says the project is in its infancy, but this shows investors the redevelopment is on its way.

“While the rest of the city is prosperous and thriving this is perceived as not,” Tapanes said.

The Doral Steering Committee was granted a year extension to continue their work for the proposal of the project Dec. 14.

A season that pops
By Ben Crandell

On Sept. 23, 1973, international ballet star Edward Villella appeared, playing himself, on the prime-time ABC sitcom "The Odd Couple," the neatnik-vs.-slob farce based on the Neil Simon play. The premise of the episode had Villella teaching the show's stars, played by stage and film veterans Tony Randall and Jack Klugman, how to dance to Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake." With a wink to a notorious X-rated movie of the era, the episode was titled "Last Tango in Newark."

Within that heap of middle-brow popular culture, two words stand out: Edward Villella?

By Aviglucci@MiamiHerald.com

A nonprofit developer armed with a multi-million grant aims to transform Opa-locka’s notorious Triangle into a family-friendly neighborhood by renovating vacant housing, building parks and installing public art.

 

A nonprofit developer plans to transform Opa-locka's notorious Triangle into a family-friendly neighborhood by renovating homes and apartments, installing playgrounds and public art, as depicted in this artist's rendering. Opa-Locka Community Development Corp.

Can a few million dollars, a public art project and a bold redevelopment plan reverse the sliding fortunes of one of South Florida’s toughest neighborhoods?

We’re about to find out.

 

 

Armed with a hefty federal grant and outsize ambition, developer and former politician Willie Logan has embarked on a mission of unusual, if not unprecedented, scope: To transform the entirety of Opa-locka’s notorious Triangle, once among the most violent and drug-soaked spots of Miami-Dade County, into a model, family-friendly urban neighborhood.

10 years of drawing inspiration from the Everglades

By Tom Austin
The Miami Herald

Artists long have looked at the Everglades with wonder. Over time, realistic portrayals of its spectacular landscapes — including the photography of local Clyde Butcher — have given way to contemporary abstraction and performance art inspired by the River of Grass and the modern pressures facing it and, metaphorically, the world beyond.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/12/18/2549737/10-years-of-drawing-inspiration...

Developer Jorge Pérez is saddened by the controversy surrounding his $35 million naming gift to the MAM 

620 Greenwich Street, near Leroy Street, West Village

Through Saturday

“Dancer,” Dara Friedman’s mesmerizing, loose-limbed 25-minute ode to the seemingly extensive, fabulously multicultural dance talent of Miami, extends her longstanding interest in performance, urban space and structuralist film. Unfolding predominantly in fluid tracking shots, it captures some 60 performers in about 40 segments as they dance, singly or in pairs, during the day or at night, along the city’s sidewalks, in its parks and parking garages, and occasionally on its beaches.

Flamenco, ballet, modern, break, pole, belly, musical-theater and ballroom dancing are robustly represented, as are skateboarding and voguing. The use of grainy, no-fuss black-and-white underscores the improvisational air, as does the way the dubbed music is not always completely in sync with the dancers’ movements. Sometimes the sounds of their breathing, as well as of passing traffic, increase the impression of being there, in the flow. And occasionally Ms. Friedman dramatizes a dance style by changing the camera speed.

Co-produced by the Miami Art Museum and Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, “Dancer” was presented on an immense screen outside the New World Center in Miami on Nov. 30, the night before Art Basel Miami Beach opened. At Mr. Brown’s gallery it covers a very large wall in a space carpeted in black, which highlights its silvery lights and darks. Inspired by Pina Bausch (1940-2009), whose penchant for constant motion it echoes, Ms. Friedman’s tribute to the human body as an expressive instrument also recalls the evocative title of Edwin Denby’s 1965 collection of dance criticism, “Dancers Buildings and People in the Streets.”

 

"Mademoiselle Pogany II" (1919) by Constantin Brancusi. The sculpture, made of veined marble on limestone and wood bases, is among the Modern works in the Ronald S. Lauder Collection. Source: Neue Galerie via Bloomberg

By Lance Esplund - Dec 14, 2011 1:38 PM ET

While a distracted art world picked over Art Basel Miami Beach, a real estate developer got the biggest bargain next door.

I mean Jorge M. Perez. For a mere $35 million gift in cash and art he got the Miami Art Museum to change its name to the Jorge M. Perez Art Museum of Miami-Dade County....