FYI Miami: July 16, 2020

Below are some of the FYIs in this week’s edition. The entire content of this week’s FYIs and Insider sections is available by subscription only. To subscribe click here.

“ESTEFANS” SHOW GRANT OK’D: A roundtable talk show series featuring Miami music icon family the Estefans will be eligible for a $50,000 grant from Miami-Dade’s Television, Film and Entertainment Production Incentives Program, as county lawmakers unanimously approved an application on behalf of the show for the funds. The Facebook Watch show, now entering its second season and produced by Jada Pinkett Smith and parent company Westbrook Studios, applied for the grant in February, but Covid-19 closures delayed matters, county Film and Entertainment Commissioner Sandy Lighterman told Miami Today last week. In exchange for the grant, the show will spend about $1 million of its $5.56 million budget in the county while shooting here over eight days in late August or early September. Thirty Miami-Dade residents will work on the show, which is required to shoot 70% of its production here and use 70% local vendors and businesses. Gloria, Lili and Emily Estefan are to star.

KNIGHT FUNDS AV PROJECTS: A series of demonstration projects gauging Miami-Dade residents’ interest in using self-driving shuttles and other mobility alternatives serving county transit stations are a go, as is a $780,000 infusion from the Knight Foundation to fund them through October 2021. County commissioners July 8 voted 13-0 to accept the Knight grant for the projects, whose lead participants include the Department of Transportation and Public Works, Ford Motor Co.’s innovation-focused City:One initiative, nonprofit Urban Health Partnerships, the Society of Automotive Engineers and “a to-be-selected [automated vehicle] Operator Company,” according to Deputy Mayor Jennifer Moon. In addition to self-driving vehicles deployed “on-demand” using apps “to provide near door-to-door rides to and from premium transit services,” she wrote in a memo, other modes to be examined collaboratively with the cities of Miami and Coral Gables include micro-mobility amenities like e-scooters and bikeshares.

ORANGE PLAYS HOOPS: A basketball court at Belafonte Park, at 6161 NW Ninth Ave., may soon be painted with an orange with a wide smile. The City of Miami’s Art in Public Places is to vote Monday on a mural by Miami artist Adam Vargas, better known as ATOMIK, in partnership with artist Sei Shimura. The mural had originally been presented to the board back in November, with the intent of it being installed before Art Basel. However, the board deferred it, suggesting the applicants reach out to the district commissioner and the neighborhood enhancement team. ATOMIK is known for painting murals across Miami of a smiling orange with a chipped front tooth.