(An earlier version of this post confused the date of the event. It is Saturday, April 9. )
Today’s quiz:
— Only one of the Venetian Islands was actually an island before developers dredged and filled. Which one?
— Which of the six residential islands once housed an airport?
— Which of the Venetian Isles hosted a U.S. president?
President-elect Herbert Hoover and his wife, Lou Henry, on the grounds at Belle Isle. (Photo part of J.C. Penney Collection at Southern Methodist University)
You will learn all of this and much more if you join the O. Miami poetry festival on Saturday, April 9.
The event is called Everyone’s an island, and it works like this:
You start in Margaret Pace Park in mainland Miami, just north of the VenetiaMarriot Biscayne Bay complex on the west end of the Venetian Causeway. Get there at 4 p.m. or after.
You will receive a “zine” — a less “maga” version of a magazine — that shows a printed route with historical notes and poems that will guide you through a tour (you could walk, bike or drive) that explores the history of the islands.
At each stop, the guide offers poetry inspired by the site’s history.
It all ends at Belle Isle Park, with a poetry reading that celebrates our islands. (If you are driving, know that parking on Belle Isle can be a challenge without a residential permit. There is some limited public parking on the north side of the Venetian Way, across from the park.)
The O, Miami Poetry Festival is one of Miami’s quiet delights, and this year Belle Isle and the Venetian Islands are a featured attraction.
On Saturday, April 9, starting at 4 p.m., O, Miami is staging Everyone’s an island, a historical tour of the Venetian Islands that ends with a poetry reading in Belle Isle Park..
You can join in by walking, biking or driving. The event starts in Margaret Pace Park in mainland Miami, just north of the Veneitan/Marriot Biscayne Bay complex on the west end of the Venetian.
Participants get a printed route with history notes and then guide themselves on a tour that explores the islands’ history. At each stop, the guide offers poetry inspired by the site’s history.
From the O. Miami team, “A taste of the hidden histories:
Biscayne Island (first and largest island) was once an airport called the Viking Airport
The still-standing home of Ernest Hemingway’s brother, Leicester, and capital of his micronation: New Atlantis
The remaining pilings of what was to become Isla di Rolando, the never-built 6th Venetian Island, which was to connect with 3 more islands via a causeway called the Rue di Campanile. AND MORE!!!
(If you live at 9 Island Avenue, you may not know that it once was the site of the home of J.C. Penney, and where President Herbert Hoover relaxed between his 1928 election and inauguration.
It all ends at Belle Isle Park, with a poetry reading that celebrates our islands.
Urged by activists on Belle Isle and elsewhere, Miami Beach commissioners have voted to phase out the use of gasoline powered leaf blowers.
Miami Beach is one of hundreds of cities and towns across the country to ban gas leaf blowers, which create both noise and air pollution.
Other cities include Washington, D.C.; Burlington, Vt.; Houston; Palm Beach, Key Biscayne, Aspen, Colo. and Highland Park, Ill. South Miami Restrictions include forbidding gas-powered units, imposing decibel limits and limiting what days they can be used.
California has taken steps to ban their use statewide. Similar legislation is being debated in several other states, including Illinois and New York.
The ordinance Miami Beach commissioners passed in late January provides for a nine month educational period to give landscapers and others time to switch from gas to electric devices, with warnings beginning in November of this year and full enforcement by August 1, 2023.
“Operating the best-selling commercial lawn mower for one hour emits as much smog-forming pollution as driving the best-selling 2017 passenger car, a Toyota Camry, about 300 miles — approximately the distance from Los Angeles to Las Vegas,” the California Air Resources Board said in a recent fact sheet. “For the best-selling commercial leaf blower, one hour of operation emits smog-forming pollution comparable to driving a 2017 Toyota Camry about 1,100 miles, or approximately the distance from Los Angeles to Denver.”
In Miami Beach, the city’s website notes that “transitioning away from gas-powered leaf blowers is beneficial for communities from multiple perspectives including reducing air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, improving water quality, mitigating noise pollution, and promoting operational effectiveness.”
The leaf blower issue isn’t new to Miami Beach, which in 2017 passed a resolution directing the administration to shift to electric leaf blowers. That transition is expected to be complete this spring.
The Belle Isle Residents Association meets tonight on Zoom at 6:30 p.m., and as previously shared, the head of Miami Beach Public Works, Joe Gomez, will be taking questions, and new officers will be elected.
From BIRA:
The Belle Isle Residents Association will hold its Annual Meeting Thursday, February 10th at 6:30pm. The meeting will be virtual on Zoom and is open to all residents.
We are delighted to have City of Miami Beach Director of Public Works Joe Gomez as our guest speaker.
We will elect our board members, share BIRA’s goals for 2022 and take your questions about neighborhood issues.
Once you register, you will receive a confirmation email with instructions and a link to join the meeting where you will have an opportunity to ask the Director of Public Works a question. We will also take questions live during the meeting.
City Public Works contractors on Alton Road and 17th Street, dealing with sewer issues.
If you want to know why we keep seeing traffic barricades, tanker trucks and warnings about sewage in the bay near our neighborhood, Joe Gomez is the person to ask.
The Belle Isle Residents Association holds its annual meeting Thursday night at 6:30 p.m., and Gomez, the head of Miami Beach Public Works, will be addressing neighborhood issues and taking questions.
During the last several months, we’ve had sewer failures on almost a regular basis, resulting in road closures and environmental warnings.
The meeting is virtual, and will include the election of new officers for the residents association.
Miami’s annual marathon and half marathon, this year branded under the name Lifetime, happens Sunday morning, and as always, crosses Belle Isle and the Venetian Causeway.
The race starts at 6 a.m. near the FTX Arena downtown, crosses the McArthur Causeway east to Miami Beach, and then heads back to mainland Miami over the Venetian Causeway.
The first runners are expected to reach our neck of the woods sat about 6:20 a.m., and the roadway will be crowded with runners until at least 10 a.m.
It will be pretty much impossible to leave Belle Isle by car during that time, so get you shopping down Saturday night.
Why not haul out a chair and cheer on the runners!
Developer Bradley Colmer’s proposal to build a luxury mixed use project in Sunset Harbour dates back more than six years, and involved skirmishes with a neighboring condo and towing company.
Work on the five-story project, a joint venture of Colmer’s Deco Capital and RWN Real Estate Partners, is moving forward, and $60 million in construction financing now in place, The Real Deal reported Wednesday.
The project, just east of Maurice Gibb Park between Purdy and Bay Road, includes two floors of office space, a luxury penthouse condo and ground level retail and restaurant space.
Colmer first proposed the project in 2015, but withdrew it in June 2016 in the midst of litigation between Deco Capital and Beach Towing, which operated on a nearby property.
Now called Eighteen Sunset, completion of construction is targeted at 2023.
Nearly four years after demolition, Belle Isle Key’s replacement remains a work in progress.
Here’s what Bella Isla looked like on Jan. 26.
If you live on or near Belle Isle, you’re likely wondering when tenants will begin moving into the the glass and steel apartment complex at 31 Venetian Way.
The old 120-unit complex, called Belle Isle Key, closed in 2017 and was demolished in early 2018. The master permit for the new project, called Bella Isla, was issued in April 2018.
Nearly four years later, information from the developer, the EuroAmerican Group, is hard to come by. Calls to EuroAmerican’s offices this week yielded only vague information. Apartments may be available for rent “in late spring,” a receptionist said. No pricing is available. Can you get on a waiting list? You can fill out the contact form on the website, callers are told. When we know something, we’ll call you….
The first apartment units on Belle Isle were not really apartments at all, but barracks built in 1931 to house troops. Those housing units at 31 Venetian Way later became low income housing and were renovated into 120 apartments known as Belle Isle Key in the 1970s.
For more than a dozen years, the owners of the old complex, the EuroAmerican Group, sought to replace the bayfront apartments with modern steel and glass units.
Before the wrecking ball came, Belle Isle Key Apartments, 31 Island Ave.
In 2009 and 2010, EuroAmerican went to the city with designs that called for 181 apartments in two five-story buildings, including a 315-space parking garage topped by two tennis courts. The city Design Review Board approved a plan that trimmed one floor from the easternmost building, and eliminated eight apartments.
They came back in May 2015 with a new proposal, with 172 units in three buildings. A variation of it eventually was approved by the city. Residents of the existing complex fought fought a demolition permit but failed, and the buildings were demolished by Spring 2018. A higher seawall was built and contractors began filling in the land to raise the height of the ground floor.
In July 2018, demolition was done and seawall construction was well underway.
The result — ground floor raised by about eight feet and five floors instead of three — is a set of buildings considerably taller than the previous complex. Just ask a neighbor in a north facing apartment on the south side of Venetian Way.
You’d think in four years the apartments would be built, rented, finito. But construction at Bella Isla has moved painfully slow. Blame it on the pandemic, supply chain, issues with underground utilities or God knows what else. When the units will be completed,, marketed and rented remains an unknown.
There are many aspects to the complex that have not been completed or received final inspections, said Miami Beach Building Director Ana Salgueiro. Among them: gazebos, trellises, stair railings, the roof top terrace, the sprinkler system, plumbing systems, elevators — it’s a long list.
So what’s a best guess on completion and occupancy?
“Based on all of the permits in applied status, I would say it is quite a bit away,” Salgueiro said. “The contractor would have a better idea as they should have the timeline and plans. I have not been approached regarding a TCO (temporary certificate of occupancy) and usually on these projects I am approached when they are about 4 to 6 months from applying for TCO to make sure that they get to that goal on time.”
On the Bella Isla website, you can see floor plans for the apartments. There are one, two and three bedroom floor plans, ranging from 717 square feet to 1,606 square feet (again, no rental rates).
On the Bella Isla website, you can see the site plan as well as floor plans, but no prices.
One question circulating among Belle Isle neighbors is whether EuroAmerican has decided to change the use of the units from apartment to condominium. In city files, “there does not appear to be any revisions which show a change of use,” said Miami Beach spokeswoman Melissa Berthier. To may that change, EuroAmerican would need to apply to revise its plans.
t’s been five years and six months since our last update, and so much has happened on Belle Isle and surrounding neighborhoods
We’ve seen all kinds of development, from the demolition of the Belle Isle Key apartments and the seemingly never-ending construction of its replacement, to new spaces in Sunset Harbour and the building boom (hotels and retail) in the triangle framed by 17th Street, Dade Boulevard and Alton Road.
We’ve endured lane closures on the Venetian for sewer line blow ups and bridge fixes. And we’ve witnessed the pandemic’s impact on our neighborhood restaurants, shops and fitness centers.
We wound down the blog in August 2016 when work and other commitments simply made it impossible to provide timely posts on the issues and hidden secrets of our neighborhoods. But circumstances have changed, and we’re back to try to provide insights and updates about what’s happening in this corner of the world.
We’ll be spending the next few weeks cleaning up and updating the site, as well as tackling a variety of topics that affect our neighborhood. Generally speaking, we consider that to be Belle Isle, Venetian Way and its islands, Sunset Harbour and the West Avenue corridor.
To help get us started, please share your questions, observations and tips. We’ll do our best to follow up.
Belle Isle Blog 