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Open for Artsy Business
Can the CANDO district do what it said it can do?
By Ben Torter
Wherever the artists move, the masses will follow.
The idea proved true in
Greenwich Village,
SoHo, Coconut Grove and even
South
Beach. Then the rents went up, and all but the most financially
successful artists fled in search of more affordable places to
live and work.
To bring the creative cool back to
South Beach, the Miami Beach City Commission voted to create the
Cultural Arts Neighborhood District Overlay, or CANDO, last fall.
Now that the district has been defined, Mayor Matti Herrera Bower
has appointed Ron Bloomberg, MacDara Bohan, Ray Breslin, Laura
Jamieson, Nancy Liebman, Robert Wennett and Paul Woehrle to a new
streamlined CANDO Committee responsible for ensuring that it lives
up to its hype.
During its first meeting March 14, the committee agreed to
concentrate on marketing the district, exploring greater
incentives for developers to provide housing and workspace for
cultural workers and accomplishing at least one project.
The CANDO district — bounded by Dade Boulevard and 24th Street on
the north, Lenox Avenue on the west, Lincoln Lane South on the
south and the Atlantic Ocean — already includes the headquarters
of the New World Symphony, Bass Museum, Miami City Ballet,
Miami Beach Botanical Garden and Art Center South Florida.
Moreover, the district is laced with special zoning incentives to
entice developers to create artist housing and workspaces, cafés
and galleries — everything for a creative, Bohemian atmosphere.
However, getting the word out to developers and artists has been a
challenge.
According to Assistant City Manager Hilda Fernandez, the city’s
communications staff will work with the committee to create a
presentation package, improve the Web site and produce advertising
brochures and more of the banners currently hanging in the
district.
To show the viability of CANDO, the committee decided to identify
and accomplish a specific development project during the next
year.
“We need to focus on projects,” Liebman said.
She suggested doing something with the Carl Fisher Clubhouse and
adjacent Little Stage Theater at
2100 Washington Ave. The 78-seat theater, built in 1937, is closed
and needs renovations. The clubhouse, built in 1916, is considered
one of the oldest structures in Miami Beach. It houses the SoBe
Music Institute.
“Every successful metro area has a theater district,” said Breslin,
suggesting that CANDO is just the place. He would also like the
committee to explore purchasing the Lincoln Theater on
Lincoln Road when the New World Symphony vacates it and moves into
its new Frank Gehry-designed digs sometime in 2010.
One of the key selling points of CANDO was affordable housing for
the creative set.
Last year, the city purchased, through the Miami Beach Community
Development Corp., three buildings in the district using
redevelopment funds. The Barclay at
1940 Park Ave.,
The Allen at 2001 Washington Ave., and London House at 1975
Washington Ave. are in various stages of renovation, according to
MBCDC president Roberto Datorre.
The problem is that the housing, because of timing, can’t be
limited to cultural workers. The three buildings were approved for
purchase as affordable housing in general before the commission
officially created CANDO last fall, explained Fernandez. “There’s
nothing that stops Roberto [Datorre] from marketing the units to
cultural workers,” Fernandez said.
The units are available to anyone making up to 80 percent of the
median income, which is $39,100 for a single person. There are
also some state programs that make people eligible who earn 120
percent of that figure, though they are less common.
Eventually all three buildings will undergo major renovations,
Datorre explained, but it takes two or three years to get the
development process together to obtain funding. The London House
consists of two buildings, which will be rehabbed into one-, two-
and three-bedroom units.
“That is the first building for which we are asking funding,”
Datorre said. “We’ve already gotten redevelopment plans from the
state. We are on the May Historic Preservation Board agenda. We
will try to fix The Allen, which was vacant, to make it livable.”
Potential residents of the buildings must apply through the MBCDC.
Once approved, applicants are put on a waiting list until space
opens.
“Right now, the application process is closed,” Datorre said.
“People who are interested should give us their address and
information so when the list opens we will contact them.”
The next meeting of the CANDO Committee will take place at
10 a.m. April 18.
For more information, call the MBCDC at 305-538-0090 or visit
www.miamibeachfl.gov/cando.
Comments? E-mail
ben@miamisunpost.com
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