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Aventura
Drinking, Smoking, Gambling and Other Sins
City relaxes
standards for billboard content
By Randy Abraham
The Aventura City Commission voted 5-1
Tuesday to permit billboard advertising of casinos and other
adult-oriented content as a last resort to help raise funds for
the city’s charter school.
Under a
revenue-sharing deal with Clear Channel Outdoor, Inc., the city
receives at least $150,000 a year in exchange for allowing the
company to sell and place advertisements on the other side of a
billboard that features a “Welcome to Aventura” message. The
proceeds benefit the city’s charter school.
Recently, however, Clear Chanel officials told the city they
were having trouble selling the ad space and asked for
permission to place ads for pari-mutuel wagering, slots casinos,
alcohol, cigarettes and adult entertainment on the billboard,
located on the southwest corner of Biscayne Boulevard and Ives
Dairy Road.
“I hope
we are not entering into a slippery slope. For the extra few
dollars, we’re sacrificing a great deal,” Mayor Susan Gottlieb
said before giving her approval.
Commissioner Bob Diamond, who cast the lone dissenting vote,
echoed those concerns. “I still have reservations,” he said.
“I’m still in principle against it; the money involved doesn’t
overcome my objections.”
City
Manager Eric Soroka said the city receives 50 percent of the ad
revenue, which netted Aventura about $126,000 the prior year.
“It’s
not always about the money,” Gottlieb said. “Sometimes it’s
about the quality of life.”
The agreement with
Clear Channel will expire in January 2015.
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North Bay Village
Who
Wants to Buy a Bond?
Referendums
will ask voters for $19.3 million
By Youseline
Aldajuste
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City officials say they want to tear down
North Bay Village’s
old city hall and police station because of mold. Photo by
Josh Becker. |
North
Bay Village voters will be asked to decide whether the city
should issue $19 million in bonds to reconstruct City Hall and
its public safety complex, beautify the John F. Kennedy
Causeway, clean up
Biscayne Bay and create new parks.
After a thorough
presentation from architect Eduardo Lamas last week, the city
commission authorized a Jan. 29 special election.
Although the
commission originally authorized $8 million for the City Hall
project, it later amended the amount to a cap of $7.9 million.
Protests from
residents outraged that the city spends at least $12,170 a month
renting office space at 1666 Kennedy Causeway contributed to the
commission’s swift approval of the bonds.
“It does not make
sense that the city refuses to approve these bonds to include
construction of the new executive offices and continues to spend
$150,000 a year in rental fee for the current space we have,”
resident and community activist Gabrielle Nash Tessler said
during the Oct. 30 meeting. “It just does not make sense and to
make matters worse, that fee will continue to increase in the
future.”
If approved by
voters, the new municipal complex will be built on 2,749 square
feet of land on the southeast corner of
79th Street
(John F. Kennedy Causeway). The new complex will house a new
police station and fire rescue department, replacing the unsafe
facilities infested with mold. It also will include a community
center and an enclosed garage with safety features that can
withstand a Category 5 storm.
On the same day,
the City Commission approved a special referendum for $9.4
million in general obligation bonds to preserve the water
quality of Biscayne Bay and improve parks and recreational
opportunities for residents of
North Bay Village. It also approved a resolution to ask voters for an
additional $2 million in general obligation bonds to beautify
the John F. Kennedy Causeway.
“These renovations
will give the causeway a Parisian feel,” said Lamas. “They will
not only include new bus benches and more spacious bus stops,
but also entrance features on the east and west … of the
causeway, better lighting, upgraded medians, landscaping,
irrigation, crosswalks, and sidewalk.”
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Miami Beach
City Board to Developer: Hate It
DRB rejects
design for two-story addition to single-family home
By William Alton
The
Miami Beach Design Review Board insists that a local developer’s
plan to add on to a home on
Alton Road
does not meet what they term “a higher standard.”
Developer Anthony Parks and his architect, Tashai Thomas,
presented plans Tuesday to demolish part of an “architecturally
significant” one-story house built — in the 1930s and designed
by C.P. Neider
—
and add a second
story. But the DRB unanimously agreed that Parks’ plans for the
house at 4712 Alton Road were vague and “schizophrenic.”
The board
expressed concern about the second story and its balcony, a
fountain and a dual front entrance that board Chairman Peter
Chevalier said was “redundant and detracts from the overall
design.” Board member Clotilde Luce said the partial demolition
would destroy the existing structure’s “cubist composition,”
which she feels can be incorporated into the new home, and
transform it into a “generic” structure.
Parks, though,
insisted that the city’s planning department staff led him to
believe that he made all the modifications needed for approval.
“We’ve complied with everything you folks asked,” he told the
board.
After the meeting,
Parks expressed frustration with the board’s aesthetic gripes
and implied that board member Gabrielle Redfern, who vehemently
expressed disapproval of Thomas’ design, had a personal interest
in the decision. “I think you are obliterating it,” she said.
“You’re trying too hard to save these unnecessary elements. This
is just not it.
“We are protectors of the design of this city and I don’t feel
comfortable with this design, nor do I feel comfortable leaving
this to the staff without a more detailed, thought-out plan,”
she said.
Ultimately, the
board gave Parks and Thomas more time to modify their plans and
added a request for continuance to December’s agenda, at which
time they can present a status report.
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Miami
Growing Pains
Miami agency prepares to give land to Lyric Theater
By Erik Bojnansky
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The Black Archives plans to expand the Lyric
Theater by another 9,000 square feet, but needs to obtain
publicly owned land to do it. Photo by Josh Becker |
Miami’s
Community Redevelopment Agency wants to donate city land to the
Black Archives so it can expand the historic Lyric Theater, but
state law requires it to offer the land to other bidders.
That means the Black Archives, a nonprofit organization that owns
the Lyric Theater, will have to compete with other applicants
for the 10,000 square feet of adjacent land at 819 N.W.
Second Ave.
Dorothy Jenkins Fields, founder of the Black Archives, said the
organization is “truly ready” to expand the theater by 9,000
square feet. “We ask that this discussion come to a resolution
as soon as possible,” she told
Miami city
commissioners during the Oct. 29 CRA meeting.
According to the organization, the Lyric Theater opened with 400
seats in 1913 and soon became the anchor of a thriving Overtown
nightlife district known as “Little Broadway.” Prior to closing
in the 1960s, the Lyric hosted such performers as Count Basie,
Sam Cooke, B.B. King and Aretha Franklin.
The Black Archives took over the theater in 1988, and it was listed
on the National Register of Historic Places a year later. The
theater reopened for performances in 2000. Expansion plans call
for a new lobby, a ticket booth, four new public restrooms, two
concession areas, two new offices, a chorus room, dressing rooms
and an expanded projection booth.
The Black Archives already received a $10 million grant for the
Lyric from the county’s $2.9 billion Building Better Communities
Bond, which was approved by Miami-Dade voters in 2004.
The Lyric Theater was supposed to be part of a larger joint venture
between Carlisle Development Group and Black Archives to develop
on nearby county land the Lyric Promenade, a $93 million
mixed-use project with affordable-living apartments and a hotel.
The project died when
Carlisle’s
principal, Lloyd Boggio, backed out in August.
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Constitutional Grant
$90,000 grant from
Miami agency does
not violate First Amendment, city attorney says
By Erik Bojnansky
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A grant from Miami’s Community Redevelopment
Agency will go toward repairing the historic Greater Bethel
A.M.E. Church. Photo by Josh Becker |
Using public money to repair an Overtown
church does not conflict with the separation of church and state
mandated in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution because
the building is historic, according to an opinion by the Miami
city attorney’s office.
The opinion allowed the Community Redevelopment Agency to approve a
$90,000 grant to repair the Greater Bethel A.M.E. Church at
245 N.W.
Eighth Street.
The congregation of Greater Bethel A.M.E. Church was founded three
months before
Miami was officially incorporated in March 1896. Work on the
Mediterranean Revival-style church, designed by John Sculthorpe
and built by H.S. Bragg, commenced in 1927, but was not
completed until 1943 “due to the congregation’s ‘pay-as-you go
policy,’” according to the city of Miami’s historic preservation
division. The church was listed in the National Register of
Historic Places in 1992.
However, in recent years, the church has been falling apart.
Congregants have already pledged $30,000 toward its repair. The
$90,000 grant will be applied “first toward stucco repairs,
caulking, waterproofing and painting as these deficiencies in
the building envelope threaten to hasten deterioration of
the building interior.”
A Sept. 14 memo from CRA Executive Director James Villacorta notes
that the agency’s historic preservation plan cites preservation
of Greater Bethel A.M.E. Church as being of “major importance.”
According to a Feb. 6 cost estimate from
DesignBuildInterAmerican, it will take $280,071 to properly
renovate the church.
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