On May 14th, Miami Herald's Andres Viglucci wrote about Metrorail transit-oriented development (TOD) plans along Miami's traffic-congested South Dixie Highway. The article also recognized how TOD connected to The Underline can relieve traffic and encourage sustainable "live, work, play" development near transit.
"Miami's one rapid-transit system, Metrorail, began rolling in 1984 under a forward-looking premise that went beyond shuttling commuters downtown: Metro stations would become urbanized hubs where residents wouldn’t need a car to get to work, or to visit a lunch spot or the gym, or to pick up groceries or their dry cleaning.It took just 33 years, but that train’s finally pulling into the station. And fast.The high-demographics stretch of South Dixie Highway that runs between Metrorail’s Coconut Grove and South Miami stations is suddenly on the brink of a thorough transformation that could bring the rail system’s original vision to belated fruition — and in the process, maybe even provide some welcome relief to that notoriously car-choked suburban corridor.No fewer than nine significant redevelopment projects are now on the drawing board for the 4.2-mile stretch, promising hundreds of new apartments mixed in dense clusters with shops, restaurants, offices, hotels and new public open spaces.
The Douglas Road redevelopment plan is massive. The $280 million Link at Douglas plan by 13th Floor Investments and the Adler Group comprises 970 apartments, including a number of affordable “workforce” housing units, shops and a 150-room hotel set around a public pedestrian plaza.That plaza, said 13th Floor CEO Arnaud Karsenti, is a key element because it would tie the project to the Underline, the planned conversion of the bare, paved pathway under the Metrorail into a lushly landscaped greenway for cyclists and pedestrians. It would run the 10 miles from the Dadeland South station to Brickell."
Read the focus on transportation article here.
