Recent Real Estate News

BY MICHAEL VASQUEZ

When Joel and Michelle Rodriguez bought their first apartment building in Edgewater, the once grand Miami neighborhood was a gritty place that few thought desirable.

''We basically evicted everybody in the building,'' Joel Rodriguez recalled. ``It was just prostitutes and drug dealers.''

Nearly a decade later, Edgewater is being marketed to millionaires. High-rise condos with trendy one-word names like Onyx and Quantum and Cité are steadily rising along the area between Biscayne Boulevard and the bay, from Interstate 395 northward to the Julia Tuttle Causeway.

As luxury towers take over the Miami skyline, no neighborhood is undergoing the nearly complete overhaul that Edgewater is experiencing. Lured by scarce bayfront land and a prime location within walking distance of the new Performing Arts Center, condo developers are rushing in, building gleaming modern high-rises next to old Florida bungalows.

The transformation promises to boost the city's tax rolls and bring much-needed retail outlets to the area. Developers now sell Edgewater as a yuppie paradise, with a night at the opera or an art gallery opening only a short stroll away.

But Edgewater's narrow roads are ill-equipped to handle two-way traffic, and some residents worry that thousands of new condo buyers, even if they live there only part time, would create instant gridlock. The new development also would stamp out what remains of Edgewater's historic Old Florida charm, critics fear.

City leaders promise they are taking steps to get Edgewater ready for its radical makeover -- working to install a nearby streetcar line, conducting a citywide master planning process to help new buildings mesh with the old, and encouraging condo builders to add roads to Edgewater's traffic grid.

It's too soon to tell whether Edgewater will become an attractive urban landscape or a dysfunctional hodgepodge.

City Commissioner Johnny Winton, who represents Edgewater, acknowledges that traffic is a potential problem. ''The math doesn't look good to me,'' Winton said.

Local architect and University of Miami associate research professor Allan Shulman calls Edgewater's building craze ''the opportunity of a generation'' but says the city lacks a road map to guide it.

''There is no real cohesive vision yet,'' he said. ``And yet, the developments are coming in fast and furious.''

The seed of the building craze goes back to the 1980s, a dark, crime-infested period for Edgewater, one of Miami's first suburbs, which had been in decline for decades as residents fled the urban core to newer, farther-out suburbs.

In a near-desperate attempt to woo new investment, the City Commission liberalized zoning rules in 1982, effectively encouraging high-rise development.

CONDO-FRIENDLY LAWS

It wasn't until recently that builders began to take full advantage of those condo-friendly laws, drawn by acres of now rare waterfront land with beautiful bay views. With the arts center scheduled to open in the fall of next year, some developers have nicknamed the neighborhood ``the performing arts district.''

Winton -- pointing to the renaissance of historic neighborhoods across Miami -- said that if strict guidelines protecting its small-scale character had remained, Edgewater could have become less like tower-laden Brickell and more like Morningside, a Miami neighborhood of meticulously restored old homes and low-rise apartment complexes.

It's too late for that now, and Edgewater's few remaining historic single-family bungalows face an uncertain future. Meanwhile, the conflict between desiring the New Miami and wanting to protect Old Miami has played itself out in disputes over individual projects.

Two years ago, developers razed the 1916 Alonzo Bliss house -- an architecturally eclectic Edgewater home that boasted a full basement, rare in South Florida. Developer and property owner Henry Harper tore the house down while city preservationists were trying to save it, a move that infuriated neighbors and historians.

The building was decayed beyond repair, Harper said, and would never be worth what he paid for the land, given the shifting identity of the neighborhood.

`OLD-HOUSE LOVER'

''I'm an old-house lover. . . . I own an 1802 colonial home in Vermont. But I wouldn't want my 1802 next to a giant building,'' Harper said. ``You need to tear down all those single-family homes -- unless you want it to be a museum -- and let it be what it's going to be. You can't turn back time.''

In place of the Bliss house will be Onyx 2, a luxury condo with amenities such as a private movie theater, a wine cellar and a two-story lobby designed by architect Michael Graves.

''A slender and beautiful 49-story circular tower of glass, shaped like a beacon,'' is how Willy Bermello, whose BAP Development is co-building the project, describes Onyx 2. The building, he wrote to The Herald, will ''serve as a beautiful landmark for the emerging upscale neighborhood Arts District.'' The project was designed to avoid blocking views; it also will provide various street and landscaping improvements to the area. At the time the building went before city commissioners for approval, several residents argued that the project was out of proportion to the neighborhood.

One, Dana Murphy, fought to scale down the building, even showing up at City Hall armed with a detailed presentation and legal documents casting doubt on the developers' right to build.

''They're putting these condominiums on streets that don't even make sense,'' Murphy said.

Winton said he will not try to stop the current wave of condos, which he said was brought on in part by neighborhood activists who decades earlier supported looser zoning laws.

''There's a real fairness issue here,'' Winton said. ``The community made their decision a long time ago.''

EARLIER CHANGES

Even before the new zoning, local historian Paul George said, the damage to Edgewater was already irreversible: Countless stately manors from the glory days of the early 1900s had long since been torn down.

George recalls marveling at Edgewater's character when he was a child in the 1950s.

''They had open porches, they were wood frames, they had these wonderful pillars,'' he said. ``It was just magnificent.''

Nine years after he and his wife bought their first Edgewater apartment building, landlord Joel Rodriguez still hopes the area can be awe-inspiring once again. He is cautiously optimistic about its chances.

''If all these new buildings actually get built, and owner occupants actually buy these units instead of investors, then you'll have people walking down the street every day,'' predicted Rodriguez, who now owns a boutique realty company specializing in Edgewater properties.

``I've always wanted that.''

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