Westward Ho

The Flamingo Park Historic District was expanded earlier this year, and could grow even larger

By Ben Torter

This apartment building at 755 Alton Road was designed by renowned architect Gerard Pitt and built in 1947.

Like a lanky teenager, the Flamingo Park Historic District has been going through growing pains for the past two years.

The Miami Beach City Commission voted Jan. 16 to expand the district, which encompasses the area roughly between Sixth Street and North Lincoln Lane, and from Washington Court to Lenox Court, to include the east side of Alton Road between Eighth and 14th streets.

Now the district may grow even larger. Members of the Historic Preservation Board voted 5-1 Tuesday to add the blocks between Sixth and Eighth streets, overriding city planning staff recommendations against including the block between Sixth and Seventh streets. The item must now go before the Planning Board and then the City Commission, which has the final say on whether to include one or both blocks, or leave the boundaries unchanged.

“It [the 600 block] should definitely be part of the historic district because it’s totally contiguous,” said HPB member Erika Brigham. “Being part of the district doesn’t take away any building rights,” it just means new construction would have to meet the approval of the Historic Preservation Board, she said.

Historic Preservation Division Director William Cary told board members he didn’t think the 600 block needed historic protection.

However, politics may be playing a role in his thinking.

“We aren’t comfortable with [the 600 block] because we have to maintain the support of the Planning Board and City Commission,” Cary said. In October 2007 the Planning Board was split on whether to include the 600 block, and did not make a decision. The commission voted in January to allow the Historic Preservation Board to consider including the 700 block. “We feel quite secure we can make a strong case for [the] 700 block,” but not the 600 block, Cary said.

The HPB’s talk of expanding the Flamingo Park Historic District began in the summer of 2006. Since then, the idea has been kicked back and forth by strict preservationists at one extreme, and developers and their lobbyists at the other. Depending on the political climate, sentiment to include the 600 and 700 blocks in the historic district has shifted back and forth monthly.

The two blocks are located at the southern entrance of the city of Miami Beach — a geography that puts them in the spotlight. Both contain buildings designed by architects that experts consider historically significant.

The 600 block consists of three private parking lots, St. Francis De Sales Catholic Church and the separate church offices, which are housed in a Postwar Modern-style building designed by architect L. Murray Dixon and built in 1948. A prolific architect, Dixon designed some of Miami Beach’s most famous hotels: the Victor, Tides, Tiffany, Marlin, Raleigh and Ritz Plaza, among others. Hundreds of Postwar Modern apartment buildings were built in Miami Beach in the 20 years following World War II.

In the 700 block are several more of these buildings. The low-rise apartment at 755 Alton Road was designed by Gerard Pitt and constructed in 1947. Between 1940 and the late 1960s, Pitt designed dozens of small-scale apartment buildings in Miami Beach, including the Lincoln Arms, Miljean, Tropical Gardens and Clifton Hotel.

The residences at 759 Alton Road were designed by architect Henry Hohauser and built in 1948. Hohauser was born in New York City in 1889, and arrived in South Florida in 1932. He worked in Miami Beach for more than 20 years, designing iconic hotels such as the Park Central, Colony, Edison, Cardozo and Essex House.

Two other historically significant buildings at 725 to 745 Alton Road were torn down by owner Russell Galbut just days before the commission’s January vote to include the blocks between Eighth and 14th streets, at a time when there was a chance that the 700 block would become part of the Historic District.

Galbut also owns much of the property across the street, including the abandoned shell of a structure that was once the South Shore Hospital, now an eyesore at the southwest corner of Alton Road and Sixth Street. Galbut’s lobbying of commissioners played a key role in the original sentiment last year not to include the 700 block in the historic designation.

How the Planning Board will respond to the HPB’s recommendation is anybody’s guess. The Planning Board’s makeup today is very different than it was in the fall of 2007, when the members couldn’t come to an agreement. Only Jorge Kuperman and Richard Kuper remain from that board. The five new members generally lean in the favor of residents, unlike the reputation of their predecessors.

The HPB’s Aug. 12 decision to go against the recommendation of city staff and include the 600 block was governed at least in part by a desire to give the City Commission the widest possible leeway when it makes the ultimate decision. Had the HPB not added the 600 block, commissioners could not have included it without sending the item back to the board for reconsideration.

The concrete flyover that delivers cars off the MacArthur Causeway and onto the northbound lanes of Alton Road just south of Seventh Street may also have factored into the decision-making.

“I’m troubled by the MacArthur Causeway overpass being a stumbling block to inclusion of the 600 block,” said Scott Timm, representing the Miami Design Preservation League.

HPB member Henry Lares said he agreed with Timm.

“What happens when the flyover is removed?” asked Lares.

Since the demolition of the 63rd Street flyover a few years ago, rumors have swirled around town that the Florida Department of Transportation would also remove the MacArthur flyover.

Cary denied the rumors. He explained that in 1995 there were plans to modify the flyover to let cars off closer to Eighth Street, but since then there has been no serious consideration to alter or demolish the structure.

“I wouldn’t cross my fingers that the flyover is going to come down,” Cary said. “It’s likely not going to happen.”

Comments? E-mail ben@miamisunpost.com