NEIGHBORHOOD: Brickell

The Residences at 1428 Brickell were officially unveiled last week by development firm Ytech with a bunch of generally similar posts dropping on various real estate and business news outlets around South Florida, based on a press release emailed to everyone by the developer's public relations team slightly earlier that day, just like countless unveilings have done before.

A few days after the Big Bubble covered the sale of Brickell Flatiron Park, from the developers of the Brickell Flatiron tower behind it to a new, and as yet undisclosed, contingent of investors, the Miami Herald posted their coverage of the sale. In that Herald article, the Big Bubble's concern that the park could be fully developed over, turning what is one of Brickell's few green spaces into a retail development, seems like it may be answered.

Flatiron Park, a narrow triangle of land in the center of Brickell that I actively followed and promoted as a park back in the good old days when I was the editor of Curbed Miami, has been sold. For the past five or so years, part of the triangle-shaped piece of land was the site of the sales center for Brickell Flatiron, a condo tower which has recently been completely sold out, with the rest being used as a green space with a landscape design by Raymond Jungles.

Brickell Flatiron, the luxury condo tower in Brickell which is shaped somewhat like the famous Flatiron Building in New York, was completed in October of last year, but just received its art collection, which graces its lobby and public spaces.

Spaghetti western star Francisco Martinez-Celeiro, also known as George Martin, has gotten his way. One of Miami-based firm Arquitectonica’s first buildings, the Babylon, built in 1982, is being demolished by Mr. Celeiro, its longtime owner. The Biscayne Times says demolition is expected to be completed by July, but just walk past it, and the Babylon, once an icon of postmodernist architecture in Miami, is already a sad sight.

The Miami River meanders through the heart of Miami, dividing the twin, skyscraper-strewn districts of Downtown and Brickell before it bends northwest and heads toward Miami International Airport. Planners intend the river to someday have a riverwalk, also known as the Miami River Greenway, running along both sides, much like the one that already exists along the New River in Fort Lauderdale. An idea that has been in the works for decades, the river walk will someday add life and vitality to the downtown core.

For years, Brickell has been the center of growth in Greater Downtown Miami. However, in the next five or so years, there’s a good chance all of that could change and move to the heart of Downtown Miami, just across the Miami River. Here’s why:

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Miami’s bay walk, extending along the edge of Biscayne Bay from Edgewater to Brickell, through the heart of the city has been in the planning stages for decades. Yet, with plenty of false starts, this great civic amenity designed to ensure public access to the waterfront is still nowhere near completion. At times, the city's dream of a completely interconnected bay walk connecting and opening Miami’s urban core to the waterfront appears tantalizingly close to completion and, at others, completely dead in its tracks.

Bordered by the Miami River to the north, Biscayne Bay to east, the Rickenbacker Causeway to the South, and I-95 to the west, Brickell is one of Miami’s oldest neighborhoods. Constantly evolving, Brickell has changed radically over the years, including an incredible development boom in the last twenty years. Brickell is a hub of the Latin American financial industry, and home to many of Miami’s foreign consulates, as well as thousands of condo-dwelling urbanites. Beginning as a neighborhood of luxurious mansions over a hundred years ago, Brickell has become the densest neighborhood south of Manhattan.