NEIGHBORHOOD: Edgewater

You know that crazy penthouse in India that looks more like a mansion plopped on the roof of a building than an actual penthouse? Well, here's a Miami version.

Well, it's literally taking decades but Miami's bay walk is gradually becoming a reality. A brand new 300 foot section of the bay walk, passing behind the Miami Women's Club and connecting two other existing sections of walkway, opened this week, providing an important link in the chain.

Three or four years ago Bruce Berkowitz, the head of Miami-based Fairholme Capital, an investment fund, undertook the creation of a new contemporary art space much like many of Miami's other privately-owned art museums. The art within would be particularly spectacular though. Located on Biscayne Boulevard in Miami's Edgewater neighborhood, it would house two particularly important, incredible, and gigantic works of art: James Turrell’s Aten Reign and Richard Serra’s Passage of Time, along with many other works in his collection.

One of Miami’s liveliest public spaces is Margaret Pace Park, at the south end of Edgewater, one of the city’s most rapidly transforming neighborhoods. Lined with towering residential towers on the west, and the shimmering blue waters of Biscayne Bay on the east, the park is a favorite of neighborhood residents. The park features basketball, tennis, a large playground, volleyball, sweeping lawns, public art, and a meandering baywalk with spectacular views of the bay.

In the past few decades, Miami's Edgewater neighborhood has undergone a development boom of epic proportions. But for all of the projects that have been built, there are even more that never got off the ground, or were never finished. Here are some of the most interesting projects that could have made Edgewater a very different place.

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.

A new casino license has just been granted to the operators of Magic City Casino to bring a jai-alai fronton and poker room to Edgewater, on 30th Street and Biscayne Boulevard. And no one, except maybe the casino owners and a few local gamblers, is happy.

Edgewater is a long, and somewhat narrow neighborhood bordering Biscayne Bay in Miami. One of Miami’s oldest neighborhoods, it really developed in booms that mirror Miami’s repeated eras of development through its history.

The former Miami Herald site is part of a multi-year deal to build an events center, while Genting moves forward on the site's marina, and stays committed to its original goal of a gambling mecca.

Edgewater, the large neighborhood lining Biscayne Bay immediately north of Miami’s urban core, is still booming. Seven residential condominium towers are either under construction or in closings, with multiple rental apartment buildings under construction as well, and a plethora of other buildings have opened within the last ten or so years.