June contract due for final stretch of Underline

The team guiding the Underline, a 120-acre park stretching 10 miles underneath Miami’s Metrorail, expects to award a contract in June to create the final and longest phase of the project, the seven miles from Southwest 19th Avenue to the Dadeland South Metrorail Station.

That stretch of the fully-funded $140 million project is now under a Miami-Dade County procurement process.

Phase one, the first half mile from the Miami River to Southwest 13th Street, is already open. Phases two and three are to be open by the summer of 2023 and between 2025 and early 2026, respectively.

The team redefined the way it did business during the pandemic and remains on track to deliver the promise of a public space where people can safely walk, bike, exercise, experience public art, and attend to events.

“The construction fences came down and we didn’t have any advance notice that the construction fences would come down,” founder Meg Daly said.

“Within minutes, people started walking, biking, scooting, rollerblading. People in wheelchairs were using the facility and within two hours, there was a kid walking down the sidewalk with a basketball to get to our basketball court.”

Ironic for an organization that aims to connect people with public spaces, months of lockdown and two years into a pandemic changed fundraising efforts and the group’s culture.

The non-profit pivoted within two weeks of lockdown and created a vlog cast called Miami Voices to keep connecting with people through weekly discussions about mobility, public art, sustainability, resilience and more. By the time the first phase opened, people were already waiting for it.

Ms. Daly considers the first phase a lab to test initiatives and identify what could work for the upcoming phases. “By what works, [we mean] memorable experiences that support our mission of lifelong learning and public health and connectivity and civic engagement,” she said.

Phase two, 2.14 miles currently under construction, runs from Southwest 13th Street to Southwest 19th Avenue and will offer amenity areas such as the Simpson Park Playground Area, Vizcaya Station Plaza, and 17th Avenue Plaza. This phase is also to have bioswales, which are green infrastructure, and below ground-drainage to help with stormwater flooding and runoff.

Now a phase three contract due in June will jumpstart more action.

“As soon as that happens, we were going to move fast,” Ms. Daly said. “We’re going to have nine public meetings asking people’s feedback on the early plan [and] the more developed plan.”

The Underline staff is to hold dedicated sessions for the plants and trees that are being selected and the ones that may potentially have to be removed because of health issues.

“We’re already doing our preparation work for that for everything from public input to the signage, to the storytelling, to the communications and outreach. It will be robust,” Ms. Daly said.

The whole project is a pollinator park so people can see butterflies everywhere, it’s a 10-mile public art gallery outdoor, and it’s dog friendly. “In the first less than a year we used 20,000 dog bags, so everybody’s walking a dog on the Underline, and it’s really cool,” Ms. Daly said.

Maintenance and operations of the trail are to be shared between the county and the Underline. Both contribute funds, 70% from the county and 30% from the non-profit, that go to a conservancy, which is another public-private partnership to oversee operations and maintenance.

“The Friends [of the Underline] will be 100% responsible for programming and 100% responsible for art and then contribute to operations and maintenance,” Ms. Daly said. “This is a model of how to make these projects work. The project is beautiful when it opens as well as 40 years from now.”

The Underline staff, which constantly does surveys, recently found 60% of people visiting the Underline said they met someone new.

Similar projects across the nation are also developing, such as the BeltLine in Atlanta, the Buffalo Bayou Park in Texas, the Memphis Riverfront, and Millennium Park in Chicago.