2006 SunPost 50 (continued)

Ron Shuffield
The Cheerleader

Log on to www.ewm.com and you’ll see an article of sorts, written by Ron Shuffield, president of the real estate firm EWM, titled “When Is the South Florida Real Estate Market Going to Be Normal Again?” In it Shuffield lays it all out about the business hell that was the fourth quarter of 2005: “The combination of three hurricanes: Katrina, Rita, and Wilma all within a two-month time period, coupled with a preceding year of cautionary market forecasts, has created a business environment that has taken the better part of the last quarter of ’05 and the first quarter of ’06 to decipher,” Shuffield wrote. “While some skeptics still claim that the real estate ‘sky is falling,’ I am comfortable stating that all that we have witnessed over these past six months are some ‘cloudy’ days of uncertainty due to the fact that storms caused us to veer off course for a few months.” From there Shuffield revealed how the storms took EWM out for 17 business days “when we normally would have been closed for only one day: Labor Day” and how it appeared that the market would be cooling off in South Florida. “Increases of value in the range of 25 percent to 30 percent year after year is simply not sustainable,” he wrote. And from there Shuffield pointed out that South Florida is still a great market, especially since everyone wants to live here.

The essay on the EWM website is Shuffield at his most negative. A resident of Dade County since 1975, Shuffield believed so strongly in South Florida that he bought Esslinger-Wooten-Maxwell with business partner Al Harper in 1984. Under his leadership, EWM racked up more than $3 billion in home sales in 2004 and employs 950 associates and staff in 14 offices in Miami-Dade and Broward counties.

The key to EWM’s success is Shuffield’s belief in people. “We realize the importance of the latest technology, facts and figures, and up-to-the-minute knowledge of the markets,” states EWM’s overview, “but, at the end of the day, this is a business about people.”

Look up Shuffield’s comments about the South Florida market on the Web and they are honest yet positive. People want to live here, he continuously says, and therefore the market will go up if no one gets too worried. “This is like an escalator,” Shuffield told Investor’s Business Daily. “The escalator may slow down a bit, but it always keeps moving. So it’s just a question of what step you want to get on.”

Shuffield’s belief in the destination also goes back to his belief in people. In Shuffield’s peace he talks about self-fulfilling prophecy which, he believed, “can be extremely positive, or extremely negative.”

“Believe in something strongly enough, and we can certainly affect its growth or its descent,” Shuffield wrote. “..If enough of the world’s population believe that South Florida’s values will continue to strengthen, it will happen. Most agree that South Florida is still an under-valued real estate market in comparison to other world centers, so I believe that the ‘perception’ will continue to lead us.”

Rodrigo Niño
Still Here

Recently, the fact that a 32-year-old developer by the name of Jeremy Green paid $46.5 million for a two-acre parking lot west of the Bank of America Tower was such big news for the Miami Herald that it made the front page of the daily’s business section. Cited as a mere footnote was the tidbit that the seller, Rodrigo Niño’s Prodigy International, bought the property for $24 million — thus making $22.5 million from the deal.

The simple mention was probably apropos, considering that Niño, who struck out on his own after quitting Fortune International in 2003, amassed a sales portfolio of $1.7 billion by 2005.

What, after all, is a $22.5 million profit in light of that?

As legend has it, Niño left Fortune International with just a laptop computer. Still, within 60 days, Niño snatched away Brickell on the River. Since then, Niño’s staff has expanded to the hundreds and has established contacts with thousands of brokers in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Chicago and Boston. Is it any wonder that past projects Niño represented have all sold out?

So, yes, perhaps when Jeremy Green actually cuts his teeth and builds all the projects he says he will build in Miami he will be worthy of being recognized as a 50. (Especially in this leveling-off market.) Till then, the SunPost gives props to a businessman who journeyed into the wilderness alone and made something for himself.

Claudio Stivelman and Gilbert Benhamou
Partners

Sometimes movies can be a very good guide to life. This includes post-apocalyptic movies like Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. In that flick there was a character called Master Blaster, who was basically two individuals. One was a dwarf with a brilliant scientific mind who figured out a way to turn pig droppings into energy (Master). The other was a giant, superhumanly strong, mentally challenged man who communicated through grunting and always wore a dark helmet (Blaster). Together the two were invincible, though at some point in their lives they must surely have been separate beings making their way in the savage, somewhat radioactive world. Likely they struggled. When they met each other, things got easier. That is, until they met Mel Gibson. For more details rent the movie. The dialogue is quite funny.

Anyway, Claudio Stivelman and Gilbert Benhamou may have had their struggles prior to meeting but each was a successful businessman in his own right.

In his native Brazil, Stivelman developed luxury residential buildings in Rio de Janeiro. After he had his fill, he came to South Florida, partnered with Coscan Homes and constructed Ocean Point Resort and Beach Club on Sunny Isles Beach. Stivelman was happily buying up lots in Thunder Alley when he ran into Benhamou.

Born in Morocco and raised in Paris, Benhamou started out in the communications business — as in phones. He started a mobile and car phone company in France in 1988. He later sold that company and, in the words of his bio: “Determined to fulfill a childhood dream, Benhamou moved to the United States at the age of 28.” South Florida soon beckoned. Was it because he knew Miamians love to talk on the phone while driving at high speed? No, it was the fact that it didn’t snow too often here and the real estate market was just starting to pick up. So, Benhamou refurbished South Beach apartments, purchased land and joined forces with real estate industry experts like Edgardo Defortuna, president and CEO of the Fortune International development group. With Defortuna’s assistance, Benhamou constructed the Grand Venetian on the last plot of undeveloped land on Miami Beach’s Belle Island. From there Benhamou journeyed to Aventura, looked into buying land in — say — Thunder Alley and ran into Stivelman.

In 2002, Stivelman and Benhamou joined forces and created the entity known as Shefaor Development LLC and proceeded to build Artech Residences and Uptown Marina Lofts in Aventura.

And that’s not all. Besides looking around for investment opportunities in Hollywood, Stivelman and Benhamou have purchased a rental building quite near Williams Island and announced their intent to build a fairly tall high-rise there called Lincoln Pointe. This has annoyed the Williams Islanders, who clamored for City Hall to enact a moratorium ASAP. The Aventura City Commission did just that, but promised land-use attorneys assembled in the audience that the freeze would be lifted as soon as they were done updating a master plan. Shefaor, incidentally, means “blessing and enlightenment” in Hebrew, so Stivelman and Benhamou probably felt it appropriate to bless Aventura with a lawsuit in order to enlighten the city of Shefaor’s building rights. Long story, short: Aventura agreed to compromise and allow the pair to build an 11-story, H-shaped building; Shefaor’s representatives worked out a deal with their neighbors at Biscayne Cove; and everyone else on Williams Island is still really, really peeved over the prospects of Lincoln Pointe. No doubt the idea of suing the city has crossed William Islanders’ minds. However, before taking Stivelman and Benhamou on, it might be best to try to separate the two first. For together they are the Master Blaster of real estate. Suggestion: Enlist the aid of Mel Gibson. Actually, maybe Tina Turner.

Isaac “Ike” Starkman
Lt. Pastrami

Ike Starkman may not be an easy man to please but he knows what he wants with military precision. And that just may be the secret to his success.

The former Israeli Defense Forces lieutenant immigrated to the United States in 1961, working his way through a series of menial jobs into the food industry. By 1977 he opened the first Jerry’s restaurant in Beverly Hills with a partner. And the rest, as they say, is history.

But it wasn’t all pastrami on rye in the early days. After the business began suffering financial losses, Starkman bought out his partner, Jerry, in 1984. He pulled Jerry’s out of its nosedive and took the company public in 1995. He reversed that decision in 2001 after the company’s stock, once traded at more than $10, dipped below $3 by the end of the ’90s, according to a Los Angeles Jewish Journal article. Another smart strategy apparently, because later in the decade Starkman was able to expand his mini-empire from California to Florida. In addition to seven California Jerry’s locations and a Solley’s deli, plus some business ventures in New York, he bought Rascal House from Wolfie Cohen’s family in 1996. “It worked out great because it was an existing operation, so I took an established place and expanded it, eventually opening one up in Boca Raton,” Starkman told this paper a couple of years ago. The acquisition of Epicure Fine Foods, a Beach institution, came in 1999. The first Florida Jerry’s Famous Deli opened on South Beach in 2002.

These days Starkman, like a thriving 24-hour deli, appears to be going nonstop despite being well into his golden years. Looking to the future as always, he has indicated plans in the next couple of years to turn the valuable but shopworn Wolfie Cohen’s Rascal House property in Sunny Isles Beach into a residential building with, of course, an Epicure market and a Wolfie Cohen’s Rascal House on premises.

Jimmy Gamonet de los Heros
Still Kicking

Things weren’t looking so good for Jimmy Gamonet de Los Heros five years ago. Heck, they weren’t even looking so good for him nine months ago.

After being dismissed as the Miami City Ballet’s resident choreographer in 2001, the popular artist seemed to disappear from the Miami dance scene. Then word came that he was trying to rally his own dance troupe, which fans of his choreography eagerly anticipated as Miami City Ballet struggled to get beyond Balanchine gracefully in his absence. When nothing materialized, the buzz died for a while, until around 2003, the same year Ballet Gamonet incorporated as a nonprofit organization. That year Miami Commissioner Johnny Winton announced a $300,000 grant to the company from the city of Miami to secure a home base in the city’s fledgling performing arts district.

Then another couple of years went by. Finally last February, Ballet Gamonet announced its merger with the established and popular but financially struggling Maximum Dance Company, which was founded by another pair of Miami City Ballet refugees, principal dancers Yanis Pikieris and David Palmer.

Although this set local media tongues wagging, things quickly and publicly went sour only six months later when Pikieris and Palmer cried foul and pulled out of the company to return to Miami City Ballet. Meanwhile, the money promised to Gamonet for a space seemed to be languishing for lack of a viable studio space downtown.

But Gamonet’s luck seems to be changing. Soon after the publicity over his disgruntled co-artistic directors, Iliana Lopez, the Miami City Ballet’s star ballerina turned ballet mistress, announced she was defecting from Edward Villella’s company after 17 years to reunite with Gamonet, the choreographer she worked with while she was making a name for herself in her early years at MCB. The Ballet Gamonet Maximum Dance debut season has been well-received and well-attended. And just this week, more promising announcements from the company, which has already dropped the Maximum Dance moniker from its Web site and other press materials: The troupe has secured its headquarters at 25th Street and North Miami Avenue; and, in just a month, Iliana Lopez, the revered and recently retired prima ballerina, is to return to the stage in a long-anticipated world premiere by Gamonet set to a piece by composer Henryk Mikolaj Gorecki.

Talent and drive are one thing, but no doubt Gamonet’s powerful connections haven’t hurt him either, from Iliana Lopez to Gamonet’s life partner, Jorge Mursuli, the Florida director of human rights group People for the American Way and a big Miami player in his own right. Mursuli’s clout has helped Gamonet grab attention and backing from those who hold the purse strings. Gamonet also has been helped by Miami Beach public relations master Lisa Palley, who worked with Mursuli on the SAVE Dade initiatives in the late ’90s and is a personal friend of the couple. And, notes Palley, season subscriptions are doing great. If Gamonet’s luck holds, he may finally be in position to go toe shoe to toe shoe with his former boss.

Donna Shalala
The Empress

When you’re talking dollars and cents, you couldn’t ask for a better president than the University of Miami’s Donna Shalala. With a Capitol Hill pedigree and the innate ability to make millionaires empty their pockets without the use of a semi-automatic weapon, the petite politico has catapulted Suntan U into the education big leagues. She’s added 17 endowed chairs and 116 scholarships so far, not to mention the $270 million shelled out for research expeditions last year. All of this thanks to her Momentum campaign, which surpassed its billion-dollar goal in January (a year and a half sooner than projected). And, with the bittersweet smell of money still fresh, Shalala’s not stopping. The bourgeois can expect a new round of champagne toasts as the campaign continues with a $250 million goal increase.

Too bad the former secretary of Health and Human Services couldn’t part with just a little of the university’s newly amassed fortune to give the hired help enough money to pay for their prescriptions. Service Employees International Union (SEIU) caught wind of the irony and, with the help of a handful of students and local clergy, is conducting a massive protest demanding unionization and a living wage for the janitors employed through contracted company Unicco. Though Shalala has called for a universal raise and the addition of health insurance, a few media slip-ups, including her own off-hand mention of the maids who make her bed each morning in a February issue of New York Times Magazine, have only added salt to the festering wound. To the displeasure of hovering journalists, however, Shalala hasn’t ventured outside of her office fortress atop the university’s Ashe Building to proclaim, “Let them eat cake!” to the students and janitors staging a hunger strike just beyond the campus lush green landscape (maintained by Unicco workers). Not yet, anyway.

Laura Quinlan
Sound of Music

For 18 years, the Rhythm Foundation has brought the world’s best music to Miami. There is no such thing as a disappointing Rhythm Foundation show. There’s not even such as thing as a good Rhythm Foundation show. Each of the more than 200 performances the foundation has presented since 1989 has been a joyous affirmation of life, the kind of energizing, awe-inspiring event you wish you could share with all your friends. Laura Quinlan, Rhythm Foundation director, insists on that whenever she books an act.

A soft-spoken mother of three with blond hair and fair skin, Quinlan hardly looks the part of a world music crusader. In fact, she once dressed her brood in lederhosen for a showing of The Sound of Music at the Gusman because, she explained, “They are the Von Trapps.” Born and raised in Miami Beach, Quinlan could easily have confined her musical interests to her tiny native island. Instead she has proven to South Florida that the whole world is alive with the sound of music. Quinlan continued a tradition established by her husband and foundation founder, James Quinlan, of presenting artists never before heard in the state – and many who had never performed before in the United States. The Rhythm Foundation introduced the nation to Peruvian songstress Susana Baca, Barcelona’s avant-flamenco group Ojos de Brujo and the experimental electronic tango of Bajafondo Tango Club. The foundation was the first to present such future local heroes as Arturo Sandoval and Albita as well as rare appearances by beloved and stunning talents such as Cesaria Evora, Yossou N’Dour and Ladysmith Black Mambazo.

The Rhythm Foundation offers not only traditional performers such as the Afro-Colombian singer Totó La Momposina, but also the most innovative experiments in electronic pop. Quinlan’s power lies in her perception: For her, “world music” is not fossilized folklore, but the driving pulse of the future.

Michael Spring
Cultural Czar

Michael Spring is not an imposing man but he has an imposing job. Now in his 50s, he has been with the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs for almost a quarter of a century, a majority of that time as its director, a post he assumed in December 1990.

Some would quip that culture didn’t exist in this county in the early ’80s, when Spring came aboard. But all kidding aside, it’s fair to say his job then was a far cry from the public arts agency with an annual budget of more than $13.4 million and a staff of 22 he oversees today. But Spring, who graduated valedictorian of his class at Miami Edison Senior High and magna cum laude from University of Miami and went on to get a master’s degree in painting from New York University, clearly has not been outgrown by his organization or his county, maintaining a firm grasp and vision despite enormous change and expansion. Discussing the grand opening of downtown Miami’s Performing Arts Center, tenuously slated for October, Spring told a Miami Herald writer: “No modest aspirations here.” He added: “Our goal is to make Miami a great cultural capital. It’ll take limitless energy and passion to make it work.” Meanwhile Spring has also been involved with another ambitious but much less-scrutinized performing arts center in the county, the $44 million, Arquitectonica-designed South Miami-Dade Cultural Center, which broke ground at the end of 2005 in Cutler Bay.

According to the Cultural Affairs Department, Spring has been responsible for helping develop the county’s cultural community into a $538 million annual industry with more than 1,100 nonprofit cultural groups and thousands of individual artists. Things ramped up a few notches in 2004 for Spring and his department when voters approved a more than $450 million bond dedicated to cultural facilities as part of the Building Better Communities program. In addition to serving on National Endowment for the Arts grants review panels and participating in national arts policy discussions, Spring is secretary of the board of directors of Americans for the Arts, a founding board member of Americans for the Arts Action Fund, vice chair of the Florida Cultural Alliance, a member and past president of the United States Urban Arts Federation, a board member of the Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau, a committee chair of the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce, chair of the South Florida Cultural Consortium and director of the Miami-Dade Tourist Development Council. Plus, Spring is not just an arts administrator; he somehow still finds time to pursue his passion for painting.

Steve Hagen
The Green Gadfly

Ah, Steve Hagen. Miami City Hall just wouldn’t be as much fun without the town’s most outspoken gadfly and activist. Originally from Michigan, Hagen made quite the clatter as a parks advocate, decrying local government for not doing anything about the woefully small percentage of park space in Miami. Until recently, he was the chair of the Parks Committee for the Miami Neighborhoods United coalition. While holding that position, the grass-roots group presented an impact fee needs assessment to the city. Still, Hagen is not satisfied, complaining that the plan ultimately chosen by the city “will allow developers to pay only a third of what they should to maintain our bottom of the list park acreage per resident ratio.”

In 2004, Hagen mobilized activists to defeat a county bond issue, which eventually passed, that would help funnel hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to help finance the construction of two new buildings for the Miami Art Museum and the Museum of Science in Bicentennial Park. Hagen believes the museum structures will cover and waste too much park space in the heart of downtown Miami. At last year’s inauguration of the master plan for “Museum Park,” where the city and supporters once again lauded the prosperous future for Miami, Hagen and a few associates were the only ones protesting the project.

“It bothers me that our elected leaders, developers and their attorneys miss the point that parks are a great leveling force,” he said. “Miami residents are being deprived of experiences found in other great cities.”

Besides parks activism, Hagen has also fought for other causes, starting out with a battle to have the city regulate billboards and what he calls “ugly bus bench advertising.” But, for one reason or another, he is City Hall’s Enemy Number One, with almost everyone on the commission reviling him (with the exception of Tomas Regalado). During an interview about parks space with the SunPost at the aforementioned Museum Park event, Commissioner Johnny Winton became irked, hinting that Hagen had instigated a question about the lack of green space and blurted, “What the fuck do you want me to do about that? We don’t happen to have 400 acres, do we? We got what we got…Nobody ever adopted the ‘Steve Hagen’ plan. He’s decided that, because it doesn’t fit whatever his vision is, it’s wrong.”

Right now, Hagen is a free agent. He is membership chair of the Democratic Lesbian & Gay Caucus of Miami-Dade County and has served on the Upper Eastside Miami Council and has been president of the Greater Biscayne Chamber of Commerce. Having just retired from 21 years of importing and wholesaling handicrafts from Indonesia, he also resigned from his position as parks chair for Miami Neighborhoods United, as well as any official capacities for the Upper Eastside Miami Council. The resignations, Hagen said, were so that he could voice his opinions more “freely” and “openly.” Recently, he formed Citizens Against Everything Bad (C.A.E.B.), a loose group that sends out e-mail blasts and tips about wrongdoings or shady dealings in local government. Hagen said the name came about from a rumor that some people at Miami City Hall were using the term “Citizens Against Everything” to describe anyone who dared “to disagree with city policy.”

Denise Perry
Fight the Power

Along with her staff of unyielding militants at the Power U Center for Social Change, Denise Perry has been staunchly fighting to further the healthy, stabilizing growth of Overtown and other minority-based, low-income communities in Miami. About six years ago, Perry founded the grassroots nonprof with Sheila O’Farrell in order to give a voice and promote organizing efforts for people that were basically being shunned by local government.

Amid the booming neon chaos of an evolved Vice City, where teeth-baring sharks lurk around every corner, Perry has set herself on a mission to help the smaller fish and won’t give up until City Hall recognizes that honest, transparent and progressive government — one that gives as much weight to the less privileged as to opportunistic developers — is what the majority of people in Miami want.

Take the proposed, yet contested $200 million Crosswinds condo in Overtown, for instance. Perry and Power U believe that the so-called “workforce housing” project on city-owned land won’t benefit the local residents as, they claim, the city promised it would. Moreover, Power U filed suit against the city for refusing to conduct an “environmental impact” survey related to the neighborhood. Their battle against this project is a prime testimony to the organization’s success: not only did the court deny a motion from the city to drop the suit, but City Attorney Jorge Fernandez just penned a letter to Power U’s lawyer announcing that, in order to avoid further litigation, the city will finally do the survey.

Ever since Power U helped create a seven-mile-long I-95 noise wall in 2000 to deflect the highway blare from Overtown, Perry has led several efforts to promote the socially-conscious progress in the city of Miami such as pushing for $1 million in inner city school improvements at Phyllis Wheatley Elementary in 2001, co-founding the People of Color Alliance for Public Schools (and providing an alternative way to acquire a high school diploma for more than 140 students denied diplomas due to FCAT problems) and halting the dumping of toxic sludge from the Wagner Creek dredging project. Add to that Power U’s educational program and it’s not hard to see how Perry is at the forefront of a movement to empower the ignored voices of Miami.

Arturo Sandoval
The Horn Freak

Every big city’s got its jazz great and in Miami, Arturo Sandoval, the Cuban trumpeter who helped found the Orquesta Cubana de Musica Moderna and Irakere, might be the city’s resounding name within the greater jazz world.

More than a decade ago, Sandoval sought political asylum in the United States and, thanks to efforts by fellow trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and then-Vice President Dan Quayle, he was able to settle in Miami and became a full-time professor at Florida International University (where he currently still teaches). Soon thereafter, he released his American debut, Flight To Freedom, in 1991. He was also featured on Gillespie’s Grammy-winning Live At Festival Hall recording with the United Nation Orchestra in 1992. His most recent CD is 2005’s Live at the Blue Note.

Now, with the recent opening of the Arturo Sandoval Jazz Club in Miami Beach, locals might finally get what they’ve deserved all along: a serious, sophisticated venue that should provide an outlet for Miami’s talent as well as for some of the biggest jazz players that are still alive. The lineup seems promising and eclectic enough: Everyone from James Moody, Nicole Henry and the Spam Allstars to James Carter, Joshua Redman and the Othello Molineaux Quartet.

Armando Olivera
Electric Company

A pending $11 billion merger transaction with Constellation Energy.

The rejection of an 18 percent rate increase by the Florida Public Service Commission.

Lawsuits filed by angry Florida residents claiming FPL did not properly maintain utility poles.

Demands from communities such as Coconut Grove and Coral Gables to underground utility lines.

The desire to build yet another nuclear power plant.

A mysterious drilled hole appearing in one of Turkey Point’s nuclear reactor pipes.

Meteorological predictions that the West Indies will remain an active tropical storm/hurricane factory.

That’s a list of some of the things Armando Olivera will have to deal with as president of Florida Power & Light. As you can see, most of Olivera’s concerns have to do with hurricanes, their tendency to blow down utility lines and what FPL can do to either prevent widespread outages in the future or, failing that, to recover quickly afterward. A tall order in itself.

But even assuming hurricanes were no longer much of a threat (yeah right), Olivera has to contend with how to supply electricity to a community that’s constantly growing and the demands of shareholders to continuously grow what is already a pretty huge company. Without the merger with Baltimore-based Constellation, FPL supplies power to 8 million customers and has interests in various power generators in more than 20 states. With the merger, FPL becomes the largest competitive energy supplier in these United States.

On top of that, if news reports are accurate, FPL has to contend with a worker who — either out of stupidity or a desire to see a really big bang — took it upon himself to a drill a hole in a pipe designed to maintain pressure in Turkey Point’s reactor core (not good).

If prior reviews and press releases obtained by the SunPost are any indicator though, Olivera can handle it. Olivera has worked at FPL for the last 30 years in various management positions ranging from strategic planning to transmission and distribution operations. Armed with a degree in electrical engineering from Cornell University (as well as a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Miami), Olivera was awarded Engineer of the Year by the Association of Cuban Engineers of Miami in 2004. Prior to being named president of FPL, Olivera was the senior vice president of power systems, tasked with making sure customers get their power.

Olivera maintains that, prior to Wilma, utility lines met or exceeded requirements. Still, Olivera told the Miami Herald, “We feel strongly that we have to do something to improve the infrastructure”; hence their request for a rate increase to raise $3.3 billion. However, independent engineers told FPL it was poor maintenance, not high winds, that caused the power outages. That, and the fact that FPL wanted a $600 million reserve while still having the ability to charge a “hurricane tax,” made the commission decide to give a thumbs down to an 18 percent rate increase.

So now it’s up to Olivera and crew to go back to the drawing board and come up with a better plan, one that won’t necessarily mean bankrupting local customers in order to obtain the necessary funds to complete the acquisition of Constellation.

We know, we know, Armando. FPL hasn’t had a rate increase since 1985. Fine. Just find that guy with the drill and kick his ass, okay?

Jami Reyes
Power Play

Jami Reyes was hired on as an office manager for publicist/consultant Seth Gordon about several years back. As the story goes, the Honduran-born, Washington, D.C.-raised Reyes did such a good job organizing Gordon’s affairs and collecting on debts that she quickly rose to the rank of corporate financial officer.

Today she is Gordon Reyes & Company’s president.

But being a partner in the marketing, communications and public affairs consulting firm is just her day job. Reyes is also on the board of directors of the Latin Builders Association, an organization representing 700 builders, developers, general contractors, suppliers, subcontractors, bankers, and various professionals who are interested in building all sorts of things in every corner of Miami-Dade County.

Given the Gordon Reyes firm’s reputation as an advisor for Miami Mayor Manny Diaz and Commissioner Johnny Winton, not to mention Reyes’ membership on various Miami boards such as the Parking Authority and the strangely named Homeland Defense/G.O. Bond Committee, many Dinner Key denizens think of her as an insider who helps pull invisible strings at City Hall. Her occasional conversations outside commission chambers with City Manager Joe Arriola help fuel that perception. It’s an image Reyes can’t help but relish, as she’s eager to flex her ties not just to Miami figures but other areas of government as well. “Gordon Reyes & Company is one of very few in Florida able to work both sides of the public relations street; media relations (telling their clients’ story in the press) and public affairs (working the inner and upper channels of government on behalf of their clients,” Reyes’ bio states. “Locally Reyes is part of a small group of key advisors to (and personal friends of) Miami Mayor Manny Diaz. In Tallahassee, she has earned the trust and respect of the Miami-Dade Legislative Delegation. And in Washington, she has ready access to power through former business partner and rising star U.S. Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart.”

Ready access to power … would sound good on a T-shirt.

We close this 50 entry with Reyes’ goals for the future, as told to South Florida CEO for the magazine’s NextGen issue. “My professional ambition is to continue to help my clients, and to be a strong and effective community leader.” She then added. “I would love to be the first woman president of the LBA.”

Augusto Gil
New Frontiers

“The Mission of the Latin Builders Association is to promote and serve the development and construction industry, thereby creating business opportunities for its members.”

So states the Latin Builders Association’s own Web site. And toward that end, Augusto “Gus” Gil, in a kind of all-for-one, one-for-all kind of spirit, has been at the forefront of the LBA’s campaign to convince the Miami-Dade County Commission to budge a little and expand that invisible line known as the Urban Development Boundary just a little farther west so builders can construct whole new cities atop the land investors have snatched up oh-so-near the Everglades. Since 2002, Gus Gil has been president of the LBA, after all.

Gil first became president of his family business, Gil Homes, in 1989. Through various partnerships with other builders, Gil’s company made an annual income of $10 million a year. By 2000, Gil Homes went off on its own and Gil Development began to construct commercial and residential projects in Miami, Coral Gables and Hialeah. In 2004, Gil made $19 million in sales from his various ventures. Meanwhile, on the civic front, Gil sits on the board of the Beacon Council and the Development Process Advisory Committee, which counsels the county on various issues “affecting the building industry,” according to his LBA bio.

And his advice? That the county should consider moving the line. Just a little. The environment won’t be hurt, he argues, and it would be really cheap for police officers, firefighters, teachers and mechanics to live in places like, say, Homestead or Florida City, unlike urban Miami and Miami Beach. “The only logical conclusion is that the demand for the available housing land within the UDB line will increase land values and consequently the housing,” Gil wrote in an open letter to the community.

As he put it to South Florida CEO: “We want to be proactive with it, see if we can open up some of the areas down south to try to create a little bit more affordable homes out there, because prices have gone crazy.”

“When you say down south are you talking about Eighth Street, the Everglades?” South Florida CEO asked.

“Well, Eighth Street, that’s pretty much getting to the fringe,” Gil answered. “I would imagine Krome Avenue eventually would be the line going out west. Now that’s my personal opinion.”

Unfortunately for Gil, the LBA and landowners west of the line, environmentalists, affordable housing experts, builders content with developing east of the line, state planners who fear there soon won’t be any drinkable tap water left and the overall public opposition to more urban sprawl have placed huge barriers in front of expanding the line.

Still, Gil and the LBA haven’t given up. They simply moderated their position —advocating the expansion to areas where infrastructure can support development. If there is one thing local builders have learned, it’s the art of compromise. As the Rolling Stones told us, “You can’t always get what you want. But if you try sometime, you just might find you’ll get what you need.”

Katy Sorenson
The Martyr

Miami-Dade County Commissioner Katy Sorenson was not the only elected official who voted against overriding Mayor Carlos Alvarez’s veto to transmit applications extending the Urban Development Boundary line. Commissioners Barbara Carey-Shuler, Rebeca Sosa and Sally Heyman also cast no votes. Yet it was Sorenson, an elected commissioner since 1994, who Commission Chairman Joe Martinez removed from the South Florida Regional Planning Council after the December 2005 vote. Martinez insisted it was just someone else’s turn to be on the board. Martinez also has said there is nothing wrong with the fact that his builder friends, including the father of a Latin Builders Association board member, want to help construct his house for free. At any rate, Sorenson, Alvarez and opponents of UDB expansion saw it as retaliation. The Miami Herald editorial board saw it as just plain stupid.

And the Herald was right. It was dim-witted to remove Sorenson, one of the strongest opponents of moving the UDB line. Her removal, along with state opposition and low water supply, have helped make it that much more difficult to expand the line westward. Three applicants for expansion projects saw the writing on the wall and withdrew their proposals.

Chad Oppenheim
The Designer

In the next three years, over 10 million square feet of new skyline will come into being, designed by Chad Oppenheim and his 35-person Miami-based architecture, interior and urban design firm, Oppenheim Architecture+Design. High-rises with names like Element, Ten Museum Park, Three Midtown and Ice. And — here’s a switch — these towers look fairly pretty.

Armed with an architecture degree from Cornell University, which he received in 1994, Oppenheim, 35, keeps winning awards from his colleagues in the Florida and Miami Chapters of the American Institute of Architects. He gets a kick out of challenging the market’s status quo through his “spatial arrangements” and “structural strategies” to create “an architecture that is elegantly reductive yet provocatively romantic,” according to his submitted bio. But hey, why waste more space with another 1,000 words? Just visit onto www.oppenoffice.com and look at the pretty pictures.

Pat Riley
He’s Baaaaaack

“To spend time with the family.”

That was the official reason Stan Van Gundy gave for stepping down from his job coaching the Miami Heat, although his removal had been rumored for months. It wasn’t that Van Gundy was doing a bad job. Last year he led the hometown hoopsters into the playoffs. It is just that Pat Riley knew he could do better … and he got the coaching bug once again.

And that bug is now carrying the Miami Heat into the playoffs, perhaps even to the championship.

In fairness, Riley did “fire himself” after finishing a disappointing 2002 season, winning 36 games and losing 46. The next year he stepped down and let Van Gundy take over. But Riley stayed on with the team as general manager and, in a move still celebrated by South Florida basketball fans, traded three players for L.A. Lakers superstar Shaquille O’Neal.

So Riley had to convince a friend to hang around his family. So what? We locals have a reason to watch TV and spend hundreds of dollars on game tickets and parking again. And that’s all that matters.

Terence Riley
The Name

You know this city has arrived when we start bringing in the big guns. Meet Terence Riley. This former chief curator of architecture and design at the Museum of Modern Art in New York now has the awesome task of taking over directorship of the Miami Art Museum (MAM) as it heads into its transition period. A 2004 voter-approved bond will enable the museum to build a brand new facility in the prime location of Bicentennial Park, which will become known as Museum Park, a space to be inhabited by MAM and the Miami Museum of Science.

Riley, a serious guy with an eye for architecture, takes over for MAM’s longtime director Suzanne Delehanty who retired at the end of last year. A little background: Riley joined MoMA in October 1991 and was made chief curator within a year. He has curated major exhibitions on contemporary architecture, incorporating well-known figures such as Rem Koolhaas and bringing in emerging talents from the design world. Mr. Riley currently has his final exhibition showing at MoMa, “On-Site: New Architecture in Spain,” which runs through May 1. Riley was formally inducted into the MAM family on March 20, and in the meantime kept busy building a house in the Design District and checking out the local scene. Riley is a frequent contributor to journals and other design publications and he even has a book deal. But we like him because he is one of the few celebrity additions to this city you probably won’t catch cruising around in a Hummer.

Eduardo J. Padrón
Freedom Grabber

On December 1, the Miami City Commission did what it normally does: approve special plans to construct a really tall tower. In this case it was Pedro Martin’s Freedom Square, a 67-story tower. Why the name “Freedom Square”? Because Freedom Square is to be being constructed right behind a 17-story, 1925 office building once used by the federal government to process Cuban refugees in the 1960s and 1970s — a building that has since been known as The Freedom Tower. Once upon a time Martin, a Cuban-American himself, had plans to connect the Freedom Tower (which he would use as a museum) directly to his project. That would require doing some demo-work — something preservationists were not too gleeful about. But then a deal was struck — Martin would donate the tower to Miami Dade College.

“The building is going to come alive in more ways than one,” Eduardo Padrón, president of Miami Dade College, told the Miami Herald. Padron said he would use it for the Miami International Book Fair. Or maybe the Miami Film Festival. Or maybe as classroom space. Whatever. His college has the Freedom Tower. Life is good.

Sure, the MDC Downtown campus is in close proximity to the Freedom Tower. But why did Martin donate the tower to MDC and not some other university like say, Florida International University, University of Florida, University of Miami, or Harvard. Heck, Martin could have walked on over to the Heritage Foundation’s Arva Moore Parks, handed her the deed to the building and say, “You think you got a better idea on how to save it. Here, take the damn thing!”

But that didn’t happen. Padrón came out on top. Why? Probably because Miami Dade College has wanted to purchase the Freedom Tower for the last 20 years. It fell into the ownership of the late Jorge Mas Canosa, director of the Cuban American National Foundation, which spent $16 million renovating it. In 2003, Padrón and MDC tried to purchase the tower from the Mas family but they rejected his $10 million offer, selling it to Martin’s Terra Group for $26 million instead.

But Padrón didn’t give up. MDC bought a 2.6 acre parcel for $24.8 million “that links MDC’s Wolfson Campus with the tower,” stated a Miami Herald article. Thus, Freedom Tower and MDC became a natural fit.

Padrón came to the United States at the age of 15, speaking very little English and without any real prospects. He went to public high school in Miami and began his college studies at what was then Miami-Dade Community College, later receiving his Ph.D. from the University of Florida.

As president, Padrón was instrumental in obtaining bachelor degree courses at Miami Dade College (hence the removal of “Community” from the school’s title in recent years). In total, Padrón has helped develop more than 60 new degree and short-term programs at the college.

Padrón also enhanced the prestige of the Miami International Book Fair and took over sponsorship of the Miami International Film Festival after FIU thought supporting the event was too much of a bother.

In the past year, Padrón has managed to bring a varied roster of speakers to the college that included former Soviet Union Premier Mikhail Gorbachev, Sen. John McCain and the former president of Poland, Lech Walesa. Miami Dade College has the largest enrollment of Hispanic students and the second-largest enrollment of black non-Hispanic students in the United States.

Padrón is also the co-chair of Imagine Miami, a planning and visioning board that wants to move Miami from a city known for its high levels of poverty to the number-one city in community prosperity by 2015.

So in a way, purchasing the Freedom Tower is just the icing on the cake among Padrón’s accomplishments. Icing that will be in the shadow of a 62-story building but, hey, this isn’t a perfect world — especially in this corner of the planet called Miami.

Tracy Wilson Mourning
The Hope

While Alonzo Mourning is busy blocking shots and flexing his muscles on the basketball court most nights, his wife, Tracy Wilson Mourning, 36, has become a big-time player in the South Florida community. As the first lady of The Miami Heat for the past decade, Mourning has parlayed her celebrity status into helping the less fortunate. She not only takes a hands-on role in Alonzo Mourning Charities, which raises funds through the popular Zo’s Summer Groove and the more recent “King Pin Classic” at Lucky Strike Lanes, but for the past four years she has spearheaded the Honey Shine Mentoring Program. At least twice a month Mourning and other women from the community host workshops and rap sessions with girls and young women in at-risk situations to help build self-esteem, discuss career opportunities and swap beauty products. “We want them to know that they are smart and talented and gifted,” says Mourning of the more than 100 girls she has mentored over the years. “It’s about encouraging our girls that they are special and are going to do great things.” The program also allows the girls to get out of their neighborhoods and see South Beach and all that Miami has to offer. It was exposure to the finer things in life that allowed Mourning as a child to see her potential. But it wasn’t always that way. At a recent Miami Beach Chamber of Commerce women’s networker, Mourning described how, before her mother moved the family up north, Tracy spent her toddler years in South Florida. While her mother worked in the jail and cleaned houses, 3-year-old Tracy, stayed in Goulds with a woman who Mourning recalls fondly. It was her caretaker’s frequent use of the term of endearment “honeychild,” she said, that eventually inspired the name of her own nonprofit.

Mourning is much more than a pretty face. She is outspoken and involved. “Believe it or not,” she told the lunching ladies at the La Gorce Country Club, “in Overtown we have one in 12 children graduating high school.” She went on to compare that statistic to all the progress being made downtown, the Performing Arts Center, the building boom, etc. “That doesn’t make sense,” she concluded. Her goal, she added, is to start an inner city charter school.

Now with Zo’s Summer Groove entering its 10th year and the Honey Shine program in full effect, Mourning’s voice in the community is as strong as ever. For Tracy, though, the idea of being a person of power comes from a greater calling. “True power comes from above,” she says. The Honey Shine Hats Off Luncheon fundraiser will take place Sunday, April 16 at Nikki Beach. Visit www.honeyshine.org for details.

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SunPost 51: Honorable Mention

Art Teele
The Tragedy

Art Teele was one of the most gifted Florida politicians of our time. Watching him in action was mesmerizing, especially while he was faking out an opponent on an issue. Back in 1996, Teele, long the chairman of the Miami-Dade County Commission, gave Alex Penelas a run for his money as a candidate for the newly created executive mayor position. From a crowded field of opponents, Teele made the run-off and made Penelas sweat bullets. As recently as three years ago, Teele left Commissioner Joe Sanchez in the dust as he continually came up with ways to befuddle and delay attempts to take the CRA completely away from him. (Sanchez called it reform.)

Yep, Teele was cool and in control … even when losing his temper. The famous car-ramming-on-the-highway incident where he allegedly threatened a Miami-Dade detective tasked with shadowing him as part of a corruption investigation? The county’s own tape revealed Teele was demanding to see a badge and was questioning who was following his wife. And when Teele mentioned he was armed, he emphasized the phrase “if I don’t see a badge.”

Still, the incident was enough for the police to arrest him months later. It was enough to force the governor to remove him from office. It was enough for a jury to sentence him to probation. Meanwhile another round of charges was coming at Teele in relation to the CRA and his consulting work at Miami International Airport. And uncorroborated information about his personal activities came out in the press. With the walls closing in, Teele decided to end his life in the lobby of the Miami Herald building.

And suddenly Miami was reminded of the other side of Teele. The Teele who tirelessly represented Overtown’s interests. The Teele who did not always go along with Mayor Manny Diaz’s allies on the commission in relation to development. The Teele who, upon hearing the cries of his gentrification-fearing constituents, opposed the approval of a $200 million condo to be constructed on city-owned land in Overtown. The Teele who started dozens of programs in Overtown and the rest of Miami itself.

Just as Teele did in life, his death made a huge impact. Columnist and Teele friend Jim DeFede was fired by the Miami Herald after he admitted to audiotaping Teele when the former commissioner called him just prior to his suicide. Soon after, longtime Miami New Times Editor Jim Mullin, who authorized a “Grand Theft Auto” feature article in his paper on the state attorney’s investigation of Teele that alleged outrageous exploits and came out the very day Teele killed himself, decided he’d had enough and retired. Then there were the mysterious (to this day) documents Teele left behind, which may or may not be linked to a wave of arrests and resignations that came in the months after his final exit from politics.

SunPost 50 (part A)