SPOTLIGHT
A $12-million project to restore Lincoln Road’s east end is about to start after hotel owners secured $4.85 million in state funding to go along with money from the city of Miami Beach and the Ritz-Carlton and Sagamore South Beach hotels. The stretch provides public access to the beach from Collins Avenue. It will receive an upgraded street design, with road and median changes aimed at improving pedestrian and motorist safety.
In addition, the work includes an art walk, park and gateway monument. A final development agreement goes to the Miami Beach City Commission early this summer, after which construction permits can be issued.
EDUCATION
- An agreement between Miami-Dade County Public Schools and Achieve Miami’s Teacher Accelerator Program opens access to non-education majors and people looking to change careers to become teachers. The goal is to reduce a shortage of schoolteachers. There are more than 100 people in the accelerator program, which generated 50 graduates last year who landed jobs in county schools.
- The University of Miami’s Department of Theatre Arts received a $3-million gift from alumna and award-winning Broadway and film producer Jayne Baron Sherman, who produced Tony Award-winning shows including Kinky Boots, Hedwig and the Angry Inch and The Normal Heart. The money will support UM productions, upgrades to the Ring Theatre and a theatre arts building going up on the university’s Coral Gables campus.
- PortMiami is creating new apprenticeship programs within the maritime industry as part of a workforce training effort. The one- and two-year programs are open to anyone aged 18 and older and include placements as diesel systems and off-road maintenance technicians and as commercial refrigeration technicians. It is part of Miami-Dade County’s “Future Ready Plan” and is a partnership between Seaboard Marine and Miami-Dade County Public Schools’ Office of Postsecondary Career and Technical Education.
FINTECH
- Marco, a trade finance platform for small and medium exporters, announced $12 million in Series A funding. The company aims to provide a fintech platform to companies that are underserved by banks, addressing a $350-billion trade financing gap in Latin America. Founded in 2020 by Miami residents Peter Spradling and Jacob Shoihet, Marco has more than 50 employees in Miami, New York and Montevideo, Uruguay. Its platform includes tools for LLC creation, bookkeeping, banking and cargo insurance.
TOURISM
- The Miami Seaquarium, once a famed tourist destination on Rickenbacker Causeway, has gone to federal court to block Miami-Dade County’s efforts to terminate its lease. The county cited the park’s failure to maintain a “good state of repair” and properly care for its animals. Animal rights activists’ calls to close the park amplified after Lolita, a killer whale who had been at the Seaquarium since 1970, died last year. An October USDA inspection found several more examples of poor conditions, including a dolphin with a two-inch nail inside it. The Seaquarium opened in 1955. The Dolphin Company, which operates the Seaquarium, says it was never given a chance to defend itself.
REAL ESTATE
- Miami’s Edgewater neighborhood is getting 181,000 square feet of AAA office space spanning 11 stories, along with 399 apartments, now that developer Oak Row Equities secured a $181-million construction loan from Bank OZK. The building, 2600 Biscayne, already is 50% leased, Oak Row says, and will feature a pyramid-like design, touchless access and 14-foot ceilings.
- A Wynwood condominium due to open in 2026 is mixing the vacation rental market’s strength with Miami’s fast, glitzy reputation. Deforma Studios designed the Rider at Wynwood with a rock-n-roll motif and its 146 units carry no rental restrictions. Residents and guests can use a fleet of Harley Davidsons, scooters and e-bikes kept on site, or walk a block to a planned train station. Prices range from $600,000 to $1.8 million.
- More than 300 workforce housing units are coming to Sweetwater, a Miami- Dade city of 19,000 people west of Miami International Airport. Li’l Abner III is the third phase of the Li’l Abner apartment community. A $67-million construction loan from Centennial Bank has developer CREI Holdings hoping to open the eight-story building in mid-2026. Forty percent of the units are set aside for people earning up to 80% of median income, with the rest capped for residents at 120% of area median income. In addition, 40% of the units are set aside for people aged 55 or older. Li’l Abner II, completed last year, is near full occupancy.
- North Miami-based IMC Equity wants to build a seven-story, 244-unit apartment building in the West Little River neighborhood, using incentives under the Live Local Act. More than 30 units will be set aside for people earning up to 120% of area median income, with the rest market priced. It would be the first of several projects on 15 acres that IMC bought in 2019 for $13.5 million.
- New York’s Sumaida + Khurana plans a five-story office building with more than 101,000 square feet of space on Miami Beach’s Fifth Street near the MacArthur Causeway. If city planners approve, the first floor would house a restaurant and retail, with the top three floors for office space. The company is building another office building on Fifth.
TRANSPORTATION
- An electric bus center serving the planned South Dade Transitway Corridor will be built near Homestead Air Force Base with $245 million allocated by Miami-Dade County commissioners. It will house 100 electric buses and charging stations that the county agreed to buy from bus manufacturer NFI last summer. Sixty of those buses will be used for the corridor, which is supposed to open next year, running 20 miles between the Dadeland South Metrorail station to Florida City. The other 40 buses will be used on routes elsewhere in the county. The South Dade route is one of the fi ve rapid transit corridors in the Strategic Miami Area Rapid Transit (SMART) Program.