FIU and Big Money Muscle In

The decade long battle over North Miami’s Arch Creek East Nature Preserve has just entered its crunchiest phase yet. It will only get trickier as Florida International University pursues a second route in and out of its campus at the end of 151st St.

The city established the 13-acre refuge in 2007 on the southern border of the Biscayne Bay campus at the behest of Councilman Scott Galvin and then-Mayor Kevin Burns explicitly to check development.

FIU president Mark Rosenberg pushed for a road in late 2011, only to get the bum’s rush from jeering residents along 135th St. and the unanimous North Miami City Council, and then took the street off the table (BT, December 2011). Not one to give up, Rosenberg – along with FIU trustees – finally compelled the Florida Legislature in 2018 to give FIU superior legal rights for a second road. He is as determined as ever to get it.

Today, that 2011 two-way game has turned into something closer to multidimensional Chinese checkers involving multiple jurisdictions, mass transit, development and the future of a section of the northeast corridor. Some of the players – FIU and Solé Mia’s flush developers – appear in stronger positions than others, particularly the financially strapped City of North Miami.

One way or the other, the issue is coming to a head, or at least entering a radical new phase.

“FIU is pitting all of us against each other – we don’t want to fight North Miami Beach, or Solé Mia,” said Galvin. “We tear each other’s eyes out and they just sit back creating their own issues while they wait for us to bleed out.”

Many residents among 135th St., neighbors and preservationists agree with him. Karen DeLeon of the Keystone Homeowners Association says the road would ruin the neighborhood. DeLeon and Urban Paradise Guild founder Sam Van Leer instead encourage creative solutions through mass transit along 151st St.

 Nor is the story confined to the nature trail, as anyone driving, walking or skating along 151st St. east of Biscayne Boulevard is about to discover. Surveyors have kept busy all the way to FIU all year, preparing for the widening of 151st from four to six lanes, with construction likely to begin in 2021 along the wetlands with their attendant environmental issues. The street was already frequently congested during school rush times before COVID-19, though the opening of Solé Mia Way has provided partial relief.

That is not the end of it. County Commissioner Sally Heyman, the county and Brightline are quickly zeroing in on a full-scale commuter rail station at 151st St. and Biscayne. The reason: Solé Mia’s billionaire developers – the LeFraks of New York and the Soffers of Aventura – have agreed to pay for much if not all of it. Additional bus service and possible rail service to FIU are under serious exploration.

This 151st St. stop has displeased many North Miami residents, business owners and political figures who have fought for a 123rd/125th St. station for 15 years, and those in North Miami Beach who had hoped for a 163rd St. station. County and Brightline planners on Oct. 15 said both those sites were on the back burner, with 151st as the preferred site, but county commissioners did put 123rd/125th back on the table Oct. 20.

“Solé Mia’s paying for it. Case closed. Full stop,” said Galvin.

When FIU won its superior rights to a second road in 2018 in that last-minute surprise lobbying push, the decision became enshrined in Florida Statute 334.352, which states “a local governmental entity may not prevent public motor vehicle use on or access to an existing transportation facility or transportation corridor.”

One can argue that Solé Mia has an outsized seat at the table as well, not only because it is paying for the station but because its $4-billion project on 185 acres is a huge financial lifeline for North Miami, which is $14.7 million in the hole and cannot afford to pay for a road.

On July 22, 2019, State Sen. Jason Pizzo tried to break the impasse by convening different parties with state and county transportation officials at FIU and successfully pushed for a traffic study, which the Kimley-Horn engineering firm completed in July and presented in two Sept. 23 Zoom conferences – one for invited stakeholders followed by one for the public – posted on Pizzo’s Facebook site Oct. 13.

Kimley-Horn presented these five choices, with estimated construction costs:

1. 135th St., $6.6 million

2. NE 143rd St. through Solé Mia Way south, $6.1 million

3. NE 143rd St. through Solé Mia Way north, $5.4 million

4. Widening 151st St. to six lanes (already scheduled), $8.9 million

5. 163rd from NE 34th Ave. through Oleta River State Park, $10.4 million

Kimley-Horn in its plans gave a narrow preference to the Solé Mia Way options of 3 and 2.

On the stakeholders’ Zoom call, Jamie LeFrak, LeFrak Organization vice chair and managing director, and his team slammed the door on any plan going through Solé Mia.

 They didn’t raise their voices. They didn’t have to. LeFrak said he had not been consulted and that all the financial projections were off by orders of magnitude.

“By virtue of not having facts, the correct facts in place for a study to be done, we’re getting picked on,” said LeFrak, a trained civil engineer. “There’s a saying in politics: If you’re not invited to the dinner it means you’re what’s on the menu. There are roads that go right through building sites we had planned. One goes through two buildings we have under construction already. What meaning is to be taken from that?”

LeFrak and his team suggested the real cost could be many times the engineers’ estimates, as they involve eminent domain, taking claims litigation and environmental costs.

Said LeFrak, “I’m a little dismayed to have this dumped on us in the early stages of what we’re doing … Professionals need to step back and gather more facts … We’re not in a position to give away property and we’re not offering property for sale.”

As for the route from 163rd through Oleta State Park from NE 34th Ave., Judeen Johnson, public works director for North Miami Beach, dismissed it as a possibility, saying “163rd St. is at capacity,” with frequent jams next to a drawbridge at 163rd St.

Not mentioned as a traffic issue: Dezer Development’s planned $1.5-billion Intracoastal Mall project on 29 acres on the north side of that very intersection, with four 40-story towers, 2,000 residences, a 250-room hotel, 375,000 square feet of retail and 200,000 square feet of offices, approved 3-2 on second reading by the North Miami Beach Commission Oct. 21, only to be rescinded the next day for reconsideration Nov. 5.

Pizzo, a former prosecutor, has also been involved in his own family’s New Jersey apartment development and management business, which succeeded in a landmark case fortifying developers’ rights in the New Jersey Supreme Court.

In a sharp exchange with Galvin, Pizzo said the city could have arranged appropriate zoning to allow access through Solé Mia years ago, when the site was largely an undeveloped covered former landfill.

Pizzo concurred with the LeFrak team that any roads through private land could carry prohibitive eminent domain costs the city cannot afford.

“The road is probably going to be built,” he said. “It’s in statute. They are entitled to build the road. It’s going to go somewhere.”

Yet 135th St. and the preserve have many complications. West of Biscayne, 135th St. is a state road. Eastward to the preserve, it turns into a mile-plus one-lane city street with a city passive park in the median. The ACENA preserve is city property from just west of the nature trail on the old Interama Road all the way to Biscayne Bay. Most of the west side is an extension of Oleta River State Park. Federally protected mangroves line either side of the road. 

In addition, nobody’s stepping forward with money. The city doesn’t have it, and FIU, the county and the state have shown no ability or willingness to pay for it.

Said Galvin: “Until somebody comes up with money, everybody is just talking. People in the county and state have told me that 135th St. is off the table. I’m not going to be bullied into a project that doesn’t have money and is of questionable need with suspect motives.”

The conversation over the future is just beginning, and Pizzo encouraged creative ideas. South Florida Regional planning council director Isabel Cosio Carballo said comments can be sent to sfadmin@sfrpc.com.