Coconut Grove Chamber Of Commerce: An Artistic/Commercial Complex Is Taking Shape In The Grove

Press release from Coconut Grove Chamber of Commerce:

June 1, 2021

In the drawing above, the recently approved Charles Ave. hotel site is outlined in red.

A large swath of the heart of Coconut Grove that has been dormant for more than a decade is poised to come back to life. This is indisputable in the aftermath of the May 27 City Commission meeting.

The final design of the rebuilt Coconut Grove Playhouse, the neighborhood’s centerpiece, is still unknown. It’s being negotiated behind the scenes—in court and in City and County offices. Whatever the outcome, the front building, designed by the noted firm of Kiehnel and Elliott, will remain intact. The crumbling auditorium, which hasn’t been used since 2006, is likely to be rebuilt in some form. A multilevel parking structure has already been approved, but it’s inextricably linked with the fate of the Playhouse building.

In addition, as of last Thursday’s City Commission meeting, the new hotel on Charles Ave. adjacent to the Playhouse is a certainty. The Commission approved the hotel project by a unanimous 4-0 vote, with Commissioner Manolo Reyes absent.

So much for the big picture. The devil, as always, is in the details. In this case, there are many devils and dozens of details.

At the moment, the biggest devil in the room is the covenant the City is finalizing (or has already finalized) spelling out exactly what benefits the community will derive from the hotel project. The developers are the Stirrup family, among the oldest and wealthiest Black families in South Florida, alongside a group that includes Peter Gardner and Gino Falsetto, two of the Grove’s largest developers. Several additions to the covenant were made at the May 27 meeting. They include speed tables on Charles Avenue to calm traffic, paid for by the developers, and a commitment to hire local workers at a $15 per hour minimum wage. These will be added to an existing covenant that included a 35-foot height limit and a $150,000 grant to local nonprofit Rebuilding Together that will help West Grove residents upgrade and maintain their homes.

Who is finalizing the covenant and who will get to approve it before it’s filed? Attorney David Winker isn’t sure. He represents immediate neighbors of the project on Charles and William Avenues on a pro bono basis. Winker fought for the neighbors to be granted intervenor status at the May 27 meeting and succeeded with five of them. This was a noteworthy victory. Intervenors have the right to participate in the process and approve final plans. How that plays out in the real world as the process moves forward remains to be seen.

Anthony Vinciguerra, one of the neighborhood leaders and a resident of Charles Ave. within 500 feet of the project, still has concerns. “We know a covenant with the City is very difficult to enforce because the City has to enforce it,” he says. “Who’s going to carry that out? The severability clause in the current version allows the city to undo it at any point.” If the developers complain about the process, for example, the City Commission could, in theory, remove the covenant, he says.

Vinciguerra is particularly concerned about a part of the covenant that deals with traffic. “We were hoping to have construction and commercial traffic routed from Main Highway to protect the historic, narrow, residential streets of the West Grove,” he says. “In the end, we were only able to get a commitment for an exit from the hotel that would ‘incentivize’ traffic to turn left from Charles to Main Highway.” Based on the May 27 hearing, Vinciguerra believes the developer’s attorney seems “ready to fight tooth and nail to make sure there are as few restrictions on the project as possible. This is certainly not what we hoped would be the developers’ attitude toward protecting the area. We still hope their approach may change as things move ahead.”

Another devil with a host of subtly intertwined details is the understanding of who exactly represents the changing West Grove community. Several prominent Black community leaders spoke in favor of the project at the May 27 Commission meeting. They praised it as an economic engine that will help to revitalize the West Grove. They lauded its Bahamian-style design and its ties to the Stirrup family. The project has been endorsed by leading West Grove community organizations, they emphasized. Yet Vinciguerra and several dozen other property owners who live within 500 feet of the project, including long-time West Grove residents such as Shirley Gibson and William Armbrister, signed a petition opposing it.

One leading West Grove organization, GRACE (Grove Rights And Community Equity), initially opposed the project, speaking out at a Feb. 2020 zoning board meeting about the group’s concerns. Subsequently, GRACE was able to negotiate a community benefits agreement with the developers, among them the $150,000 for Rebuilding Together and the requirement for local job creation, that changed its position to one of support. According to Rev. Nathaniel Robinson, GRACE’s chairman, much of the language in the final covenant is derived from the community benefits agreement. Another provision was limiting the project to a hotel instead of condos or some other use resulting from the required rezoning of the properties involved. “That was a major win for us,” says Robinson.

Where is all this leading? Inevitably, it’s leading toward a significant shift in what the Playhouse-centered part of Coconut Grove will look like, what commercial elements it includes, and what the traffic will be like when it’s all completed. Meanwhile, the devils are in the respective details.

Below: A rendering of the hotel facing Charles Ave.

This press release was produced by Coconut Grove Chamber of Commerce. The views expressed here are the author’s own.