The Miami Beach Botanical Garden has just completed an expansion that extends along the Collins Canal for 350 feet, embracing an underutilized piece of land and expanding the garden to a full three acres. With a design by landscape architect Raymond Jungles, the expansion consists of a meandering path along the canal's southern edge, new gateways, and lush foliage. The new area will be able to be enjoyed by visitors "soon," says the garden, which is currently closed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Back in September, we reported that the Kimpton Hotel Palomar South Beach would open in late 2019. Well, guess what? 2019 has practically come and gone, and although construction at the hotel is on the home stretch, it still hasn't opened. The latest word from the hotel's publicist is that a tentative January 27th opening date has been set.
Officially called "Kimpton Hotel Palomar South Beach," the new hotel on the corner of Alton Road and the Collins Canal, overlooking Dade Boulevard in Miami Beach, has announced they are opening "late 2019" as construction workers hustle to finish the job. The hotel is hedging its bets, however, and only taking reservations for April 2020 and later.
In a fun and silly example of Miami's decadent tourist culture, the Dream South Beach Hotel, destination for the vacationing party crowd, has hired a "Chief Float Officer," whose job is to set people up with floaties at the rooftop pool.
OLA, the South Florida mainstay that served creative latin cuisine at the Sanctuary Hotel for fourteen years, until it was damaged by Hurricane Irma in 2017, has just reopened at South Beach's Gates Hotel after moving around for a few years. Always a happening place at the Sanctuary, the restaurant hopes to continue its success with a new executive chef, Chris Castro.
So many South Beach joints can seem, well, insanely touristy. From the sidewalk cafes with their gigantic cocktails on Ocean Drive, to the overpriced, underwhelming restaurants of Lincoln Road, it’s easy to write off the whole neighborhood as one giant gastronomic Times Square. There are some real winners that have been around forever, however, and they still haven’t sold out like many South Beach hot spots.
Off a narrow pedestrian alley off busy Lincoln Road, hidden behind 1111, the high-design parking garage famous for showing how beautiful parking garages could be, nestles a little hidden colony of courtyard townhouses sitting atop a few shops, cafes, and a fancy Japanese Peruvian restaurant. One of houses, designed by starchitect firm Herzog & de Meuron, who also did the rest of the 1111 complex, is on the market for $2.999 million.
The Continuum, that gigantic duo of residential towers at the southern point of South of Fifth, with its hundreds of units, acres of grounds, and oodles of amenities, is embarking on a multimillion-dollar renovation of its long entrance drive, which ascends two levels from the street to the main entrance, and will include the two roundabouts, the gatehouse, new pavers, a new fountain, and extensive landscaping. ArquitectonicaGEO, the landscape architecture arm of Miami megafirm Arquitectectonica, is handling the reno.
The new public art adorning the Miami Beach Convention Center was recently unveiled, including a series of murals and a public park lining Collins Canal adorned with large aluminum sculptures. The art, as curated by the City of Miami Beach's Art in Public Places initiative, includes site-specific permanent works by Joseph Kosuth, Joep van Lieshout, Ellen Harvey, and Franz Ackerman, with a tile installation by artist Sarah Morris set to debut by the end of the month. The Joep van Lieshout pieces, specifically, enhance the gorgeous new park along Collins Canal.
Monad Terrace, famed French architect Jean Nouvel's first project in Miami, has just topped off, and the Big Bubble got a hard hat tour of the boutique luxury condo project's construction site with architect Kobi Karp, who collaborated with Nouvel on the project. Check it out, below.