Miami Beach seeks vision for cultural center

Miami Beach is seeking letters of interest from artistic and cultural organizations and facility operators to gauge what visions they could have for the development of a Byron Carlyle cultural center in North Miami Beach.

Miami Beach Commissioner Alex Fernandez asked the administration to request letters of interest to better understand “how would they envision the use of this space,” after Commissioner Kristen Rosen Gonzalez called for the prioritization of the redevelopment of the Byron Carlyle, located at 500 71st St. between Byron Avenue and Carlyle Avenue. “First, we need to know which are those cultural organizations, or cultural operators that would use it,” he said.

The letters of interest would have 45 days out for advertisement, which means by March the city could have its responses, said Commissioner David Richardson.

At the December commission meeting, Ms. Rosen Gonzalez urged the commission to prioritize funding the renovation of the old theater, citing a letter from non-profit group Miami Beach United, which said that after MC Harry and Associates estimated the renovation of the building at $15 million to $22 million, the Byron Carlyle remained closed and inactivated. At the time, the city did move forward with renovations due to a funding shortfall.

That inactivity is “putting the building at risk of receiving a county condemnation order in demolition by neglect, like what happened to the Deauville Hotel,” said the letter.

However, the current building is “structurally unsafe,” said City Manager Alina T. Hudak, “with electrical issues, [flood] water as high as my height. There is not a bathroom that doesn’t have a leak.”

Adrian Morales, city facilities director, added that the building did not pass its 50-year recertification and that a full rebuilding would be necessary.
“I absolutely will not support the renovation of the old structure,” said Mr. Richardson. “The building has been technically condemned, and it is not a historic structure. It is not suited for a cultural center. People don’t want to go to movie theaters the way they did 10 years ago.”

After the passage of the city’s arts and culture general obligation bond in the November election, the Byron Carlyle would get a $28,310,000 allocation for its construction, providing a multi-use theater, cultural center, and possibly workforce or artists housing. The city has also used $100,000 of the $400,000 allocated to draw a conceptual design using city-produced charettes conducted last summer.

“At the request of [late] Commissioner [Mark] Samuelian, we had Alan Shulman (from Shulman and Associates) to do a conceptual masterplan through community charettes,” said Mr. Morales. “Those results just came back to us a couple of months ago. The passing of the arts and culture G.O. Bond was timely, and now we have a footprint that we can follow.”

In this survey, he added, the public showed no interest in a traditional theater. “They want a flexible space. Some of the operators have already reached out to us, asking us how we’re going to program it and how are we going to curate that venue once we build it.”

In 2021, the North Beach Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) voted to include affordable workforce and artist housing when planning for the Byron Carlyle. Michael Spring, director of the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs, has also reached out to the city to suggest ideas, he said.

One vision could also be submitted by student housing developers Servitas, which began working with Mr. Richardson in July 2021 on an unsolicited proposal to develop a new Byron Carlyle cultural center with workforce housing.

The possible design could have 14,000 square feet for culture on the ground floor, five levels of workforce housing with about 177 units, and a rooftop cultural space of about 6,000 to 7,000 square feet, Mr. Richardson previously said. Servitas is waiting to close an agreement with the city for its 48,500-square-foot Collins Park workforce housing project at the Collins Park Garage, which includes 32 artist dormitories, 80 units of workforce housing, and 6,000 square feet of ground floor retail.

“I think we know that there are people interested in being a cultural partner there,” Mr. Richardson said. “Whatever facility we end up building will most likely have the entire ground floor dedicated to some sort of cultural space, and the build-out would happen at the very end. We’ve got some time, but it’s not too soon to start looking at options.”

In addition, zoning restrictions in Town Center – a 10-block area in North Beach around 71st Street – changed in the 2017 referendum, allowing for an increase in floor area ratio (FAR) to 3.5. This could allow development at the Byron Carlyle to have a higher density and height on its 110,000-square-foot ground space.

“I think we have two important issues,” said Mr. Richardson about North Beach. “One is to have some cultural activation in addition to what we already have, but also, we have a desperate need for workforce housing. So, I’m really hopeful that we can get both issues accomplished in one building.”