1674-1 Liebman Nancy e design Online article: Miami Beach: A History of Boom to Bust to Boom Page 1 of 9
e design
Miami Beach
A History of Boom to Bust to Boom
Nancy Liebman
Miami Beach City Council
Miami Beach re-discovered its true wealth—and its
identity—by defeating the blind greed of an old city hall
establishment.
Posted 23 April 1997
r, wh<r��.:. •'`•'''''`�'�'° Miami Beach's development has been a series
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of successes, crashes, and rebirths. The city's
earliest development began with avocado
farms, coconut plantations, a wooden bridge
from the Miami mainland, grand hotels, and a
tourist boom--but then came the disruptive
Nancy Liebman hurricane of 1926. By the 1930s, as the
country was recovering from the Great
Depression, Miami Beach was well on the
road to new speculation and the building of a
modern 20th Century Tropical Deco resort
area. The trend continued until World War
H, when the Army Airforce took over the
booming little resort area. Following the war,
Miami Beach was the symbol of glitz and
glamour for the tourist industry. A new hotel
was built every year throughout the 1950s
and early 1960s. Subsequently, a wave of
condominium high-rises replaced the elegant
estates in an effort to bring retirees to the
city for year-round housing.
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By the 1970s new resorts and jet service had
diminished Miami Beach's image as a tourist
destination. As tourism waned, the city
turned its attention to expanding its
convention center. As the hotels lost
business, they fell on hard times and neglect,
especially in the older neighborhoods of
South Beach. By the 1980s, the Martel Boat
Lift had brought a horde of new people to
Miami Beach, some of whom were honest
and hard-working and others who became
part of the criminal element that gravitated to
the troubled neighborhoods. Desperate
property owners and a negligent city allowed
the city to crash. I call this the Third Bust.
The 1990s are a period of boom, as the city
is experiencing its third renaissance.
Ironically, the rebirth of the city is based
upon the revival and restoration of its earliest
neighborhoods.
The Historic Preservation Movement:
The Revival Of A City
A failing Redevelopment Agency with a
scheme to turn Miami Beach's oldest
neighborhood into a canal-filled new city met
headlong with a fledgling preservation
organization in 1976, the year the Miami
Design Preservation League was founded.
While the city's leaders worked to maximize
zoning, condemn properties, thwart
improvements to existing building stock, and
schemed to disembody a neighborhood, the
Preservation League went to work to place
the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s Tropical Deco
signature statement architecture onto the
The only results of National Register of Historic Places. In
the failed 1979, the Art Deco District was placed on
revitalization plan the Register despite the city government's
were lawsuits that objections. The city leadership continued to
put the city in great
jeopardy and a court a failing urban revitalization scheme
neglected that had been organized by a failing
neighborhood. Redevelopment Agency. The only results of
the failed revitalization plan were lawsuits
that put the city in great jeopardy and a
neglected neighborhood. The collapse of the
neighborhood took place as a result of a
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building moratorium which had been
designed to drive residents out and lower the
values of properties ripe for condemnation.
The National Register designation of the
neighborhood to the north of the
Redevelopment Area was not recognized as
an asset by the city, and the efforts to
preserve, protect, and promote it became a
thirteen-year battle in the city.
The City's Long Climb To Its Third
Boom: A New Vision
After the National Register Designation in
1979, the Preservation League created an
Art Deco District Preservation Plan, a vision
and a guide to preserving, protecting,
marketing, promoting, and creating infill for
the designated district. The Plan was never
adopted or recognized by the City
leadership. In retrospect, the Plan was
actually a portent, as it mentioned many of
the events that have actually occurred since
that time.
The League followed the model of the Plan.
The grassroots efforts included marketing
and promoting, establishing an economic arm
for development and restoration, learning
grantsmanship, lobbying for preservation
laws to both prevent demolition and establish
a design review process, and creating media
relations to help win over an intransigent
The changes City government. The changes occurred one
occurred one small small step at a time, and it was a challenge to
step at a time. create the local legislation necessary to
protect the integrity of the one-square-mile
neighborhood. The City's leadership
establishment rejected any historic
preservation overlay legislation. A lawsuit by
Dade County finally overturned the City's
resistance, but only with a change in political
leadership in the early 90s did the battles turn
to successes.
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The Grand Compromise: Developer Jets
Preservationist
While the Preservation League was steadfast
in its vision to protect the National Register
Art Deco District, the City's leadership
continued to support the Redevelopment
Agency's Revitalization Plan. The leadership
feared preservation protection for the
historic neighborhood because they wished
to build a new convention center hotel in the
area on the ocean near the Miami Beach
Convention Center. The Convention Center
had been expanded as a fix for the lagging
tourist industry, but now the City needed a
new hotel to serve it. With the Second Bust
of the city in the 1970s and 1980s and a dead
hotel market, the city had not had a new
hotel in 20 years.
The City leadership did not understand the
growing phenomenon of a re-energized Art
Deco District and wished to build the new
hotel by condemning property on the
northern edge of the designated National
Register District. The preservationists
prevailed upon the City administration to
hire an architectural consulting firm to
demonstrate to the public that a new
convention hotel could be designed that
would incorporate historic buildings into a
plan for new compatible construction. This
construction would be in keeping with the
existing scale of the neighborhood and
sympathetic with the pedestrian quality of
the Art Deco District. The study concluded
with a plan that was accepted by the
preservationists, developers, hoteliers, and
the tourism convention industry. The new
hotel, Loews Miami Beach, will open in
1998.
The grand compromise limited the scale of
the new construction but also allowed for
certain portions of historic buildings to be
It was a time of new demolished. It was a time of new acceptance
acceptance for the for the preservation ethic in Miami Beach.
preservation ethic in
Miami Beach. The entire boundary of the National Register
District was finally protected with local
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preservation legislation in 1992, two years
after the compromise had been reached.
The Vision Creates A New City: The Art
Deco District Becomes An International
Tourist Phenomenon,A Cultural Mecca
And Home To A Growing Film, Fashion,
Production, Entertainment, And Music
Industry
I will use this section to show a series of
slides outlining the beginnings of the
successful restoration of the historic district.
The slides are organized in the following
categories:
The earliest 1920s Mediterranean and
Mission style architecture.
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Whimsical structures of the 1930s through
the 1940s, including the faux federalist style
such as the Betsy Ross, Jefferson, and White
House created during the Second World
War.
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Selected architectural features that
distinguish the human-scale buildings and are
described in the nomination as significant to
the district as listed on the National Register.
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e design Online article: Miami Beach: A History of Boom to Bust to Boom Page 6 of 9
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Early restoration projects and projects
showing restoration and new construction.
Restoration in the residential neighborhoods.
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e design Online article: Miami Beach: A History of Boom to Bust to Boom Page 7 of 9
New restaurants, the cultural renaissance,
and the growth of the film, fashion, and
entertainment industry.
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The adaptive reuse of historic buildings as a
commercial base.
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e design Online article: Miami Beach: A History of Boom to Bust to Boom Page 8 of 9
Non-success stones and the areas that almost
got away, including Lincoln Road and the
Museum District.
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Summary Statement: The Success Needs
To Be Nurtured
Miami Beach has learned the value of
protecting its architectural heritage, as this
heritage has been the catalyst for the city's
latest boom. The world now recognizes
Miami Beach's signature statement, its
thriving Art Deco District. With success
comes a new challenge. We must be ever-
vigilant in protecting the atmosphere that has
been created. We must reject the efforts of
those who wish to over-build and over-
commercialize our popularity. The City
emerged too rapidly over the past five years,
and we must be respectful of the
infrastructure that supports it while
recognizing its limitations as an historic area.
Let us consider the City's past history and
never allow this to become the City's final
bust.
Universal Lessons
Cities of quality preserve the past and use it
Cities of quality as a guide to build the future. Historic
preserve the past Districts and Heritage Tourism are a
and use it as a guide phenomenon as well as an economic success.
to build the future. Cities must have an identity to distinguish
them from the rest.
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Nancy Liebman
Related Information
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Florida Sustainability Conference
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