Two projects on land owned by the City of Miami Beach may bestow us with more architectural transcendence than we can handle with Rem Koolhaas and Snøhetta in the lead to develop some major beach real estate.
In the grand competition to redevelop the huge Miami Beach Convention Center site, architect Rem Koolhaas (designer of a multi-building Saxony Hotel expansion and, like, one of the biggest architects ever) would be the main designer for one of the two front-running teams. That team is headed by Bob Wennett, the man who built, and occupies the top floor of Herzog & de Meuron's 1111 garage, partnering with Tishman Hotels. The other front-running team, architect-less, brings with them Cirque du Soleil, which would probably shack up in the Jackie Gleason Theatre on the south east corner of the site.
Snøhetta, the Norwegian architecture firm that designed the 9/11 Museum pavilion and permanent Times Square pedestrianization in New York, may be winning a commission to design something interesting (think a mixed-use, retail, offices, entertainment, big parking garage, all around open air plazas, sort of a thing) on three city-owned parking lots along Lincoln Lane North, the underutilized alley just off Lincoln Road. The sole front-running development team, as recommended by an evaluation committee, is again Bob Wennett, who this time is partnering with developer Michael Comras, a major Lincoln Road landowner. Two conceptual renderings show a collection of courtyards, breezeways, and promenades activating the alley as a pedestrian corridor to other significant Lincoln Road landmarks, some really swishy, and slightly Jetsonian modern architecture, and lots of lush greenery. Both the Lincoln Lane North and convention center projects are due to come before the Miami Beach City Commission for a decision.
· South Beach Redevelopment Proposals Progressing [Miami Herald]