1674-3 Tony Goldman THE MIAMI HERALD
Copyright (c) 1992, The Miami Herald
DATE: Sunday, September 20, 1992 EDITION: FINAL
SECTION: NEIGHBORS MB PAGE: 3 LENGTH: 54 lines
SOURCE/CREDIT LINE: DAVID KIDWELL Herald Staff Writer
A LONGER OCEAN DRIVE WINS FAVOR ON BEACH
A new idea to extend Ocean Drive north, weaving it through old and new
hotels that would complement the Miami Beach Convention Center, won unanimous
support Friday from a Miami Beach advisory committee.
Both historic preservationists and longtime proponents of a large
convention center hotel agreed on the plan, designed to attract a major hotel
developer to Miami Beach.
"This is historic, " said City Manager Roger Carlton. "It's a great step
forward. "
The concept would extend Ocean Drive one block north to 16th Street,
instead of 15th Street, where it now ends.
The idea is to create a village-type hotel complex, bordered by 16th
Street to the north, 15th street to the south, Collins Avenue to the west and
the extended Ocean Drive to the east.
The plan calls for a large 750-room convention headquarters hotel on the
north side of 16th Street.
Three historic hotels on Collins Avenue -- the Bancroft, Royal Palm and
St. Moritz hotels -- would be renovated and upgraded to form the western
border.
To camouflage the rear of these hotels, smaller four- to six-story
properties would be built along the extended Ocean Drive from 15th to 16th
streets.
These properties could accommodate retail outlets and nightclubs on the
ground floor, and hotel rooms upstairs, much like the historic hotels along
Ocean Drive.
The concept was presented Friday at a meeting of a hotel development
advisory committee formed to forge a compromise between historic
preservationists and those who have advocated a large 1,500-room hotel tower.
Tourism officials say it is difficult to book the newly expanded
convention center without a top-quality convention headquarters hotel within
walking distance.
"I'm excited about it, " said Tony Goldman, chairman of the Ocean Drive
Association, a merchants' group. "I think it's great. It's a far better
approach than having a monolith at the end of the street. "
The compromise agreed upon Friday marks an important first step toward
getting the support necessary to attract a hotel developer, Carlton said.
The support includes about $5 million per year in public subsidies, he
said. Plans call for that money to come from an additional 1 percent hotel bed
tax which is on the Nov. 3 ballot, future resort taxes generated by the hotel
itself, and future property tax revenue in the surrounding neighborhood.
The $5 million per year is enough to take out $50 million in bonds for
such items as parking garages, street improvements and other public facilities
that would help out a developer.
Carlton said he hopes to have all these financial commitments in place
and a contract signed with a developer by
December 1993.
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