INNOVATION

Two years ago, Debbie Dickinson, a Harvard-educated lawyer and mother of four, began experiencing hot flashes due to perimenopause, the time leading up to menopause.

To relieve her symptoms, Dickinson used an array of ice packs, wraps and fans, all of which worked well enough until she visited her daughter Markea, who was a Yale MBA student at the Dickinson realize that what she really needed was a portable, technology-driven solution to hot flashes, she says.

Markea tapped into expertise available at Yale, and mother and daughter launched Thermaband, a Miami-based digital health venture focused on menopausal women, chemotherapy patients and others struggling with body temperature control. The company’s first product, Thermaband Zone, is a wrist-worn device that can automatically sense a change in the wearer’s body temperature and respond with a cooling or heating sensation. The patent-pending device, now in final testing, likely will sell for $199, Dickinson says.

“It was a solution I needed because I can’t always be home to stick my head in a freezer or sit in front of a fan,” she says.

Tech giant Google recently selected Thermaband for its Google for Startups Founders Academy, a nationwide six-month program designed to help entrepreneurs raise pitldi-crease time. Being away from home made capital and increase sales.

RECREATION

• Miami-Dade County officials opened Tree Island Park near the Tamiami Trail in the western part of the county. The park includes recreational space and 70 acres of restored Everglades habitats.
• William Elgar, previously head of zoological operations at the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta, is the new director of Zoo Miami. He succeeds Carol Kruse, who retired.

REAL ESTATE

• Palm Island, a 3.6-acre private island accessible by bridge from Marathon, sold for $11 million. The buyer was not disclosed.
• The Melo Group is developing Downtown 1st, a 560-unit apartment building with 10,000 square feet of offices, 3,000 square feet of retail and 450 parking spaces in downtown Miami. The project is to be completed next year.
• Miami Beachbased AB Asset Management will convert a 140-unit Residence Inn hotel in Coconut Grove to apartments.
• Cornerstone Group is building Platform 3750, an affordable housing project in the West Grove area of Miami. When complete in late 2022, the development will have about 190 apartments as well as an Aldi and a Starbucks.
• The master developer of Miami Worldcenter, a 27-acre mixeduse development in downtown Miami, sold a parcel with 45,000 square feet of developable land for $20 million to Coral Gables-based Abbhi Capital, which also purchased a neighboring parcel for $24 million last year.

RETAIL

• A historic Walgreens Drug Store building in downtown Miami will reopen as a mix of restaurants, bars and office space after the city’s Historic and Environmental Preservation Board approved plans for an addition and alterations to the 1930s structure. The site will be renamed Julia & Henry’s, in honor of Miami pioneers Julia Tuttle and Henry Flagler.

TECHNOLOGY

• Organizers of what’s believed to be the largest cryptocurrency conference in the world moved this year’s event to Miami. Bitcoin 2021, originally planned for Los Angeles, will take place June 3-5 in Wynwood with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey as a speaker.
• Venture capital firms Founders Fund and Atomic, as well as their joint venture OpenStore, an ecommerce startup, leased about 22,000 square feet of office space in Wynwood.

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

• The Miami Beach City Commission approved an incentives program designed to attract employers in the finance and technology sectors. The city will expedite its review and permitting process for eligible companies undertaking construction or renovation projects and will offer between $180,000 and $240,000 per company over a three- to four-year period.

FINANCIAL SERVICES

• Miami-based technology startup Asteya, which offers disability insurance to self-employed and gig economy workers, raised $10 million in private funding.

HEALTH CARE

• Miami-based Baptist Health South Florida matched a $1-million grant from the Knight Foundation to launch a fellowship program focused on health care technology and innovation.

MEDIA

• Miami-based Hemisphere Media Group paid entertainment giant Lionsgate $124 million for a 75% stake in Pantaya, a subscription streaming service for Spanish-language movies. Hemisphere, which now owns 100% of Pantaya, partnered with Lionsgate to launch the streaming service in 2017. Pantaya has more than 900,000 subscribers.

SPORTS BUSINESS

• California-based mortgage provider LoanDepot signed a multiyear deal with the Miami Marlins for the naming rights to Marlins Park, now LoanDepot Park. Financial terms were not disclosed.

 

Read more in Florida Trend's June issue.
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