Current media coverage and upcoming developments hand-picked from the industry.

93MiracleMile

Terranova Reveals Arquitectonica-Designed Carbon-Neutral Mixed-Use Building On Miracle Mile In Coral Gables

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PROFILE MIAMI – September 14, 2022

Terranova Corporation, led by Stephen Bittel, has revealed plans for 93 Miracle Mile, the first carbon-neutral building in Florida on Miracle Mile in Coral Gables. The Arquitectonica-designed mixed-use commercial building will use electricity-generating photovoltaic glass and will be the first built under the new Miracle Mile Overlay zoning code. Plans were recently submitted to the City of Coral Gables for approval. 93 Miracle Mile will rise four-stories and will feature 6,700 SF of ground floor restaurant space, 9,700 SF of retail space on the 2nd and 3rd floors, and 7,300 SF of office space on the 4th floor. The building will also feature a rooftop terrace.

Terranova is the largest property owner on Miracle Mile with a portfolio spanning 15 properties and 120,000 SF. They acquired the .2-acre site with a vacant 9,000 SF retail building which was previously Navarro Discount Pharmacy for $6.8 million in December 2021.

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Lincoln Road

The Secret to Lincoln Road’s Success

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COMMERCIAL OBSERVER – HOW MIAMI BEACH’S CAR-FREE PEDESTRIAN MALL SURVIVES AND THRIVES EVEN AS OTHER EXPANSES SHUTTER – September 16, 2022

In the 1960s and 1970s, shiny new shopping malls sprang up in suburbs everywhere, and urban planners grew desperate to save downtowns from being hollowed.

Their solution: Transform commercial strips into car-free pedestrian malls. The strategy largely flopped. Most cities that experimented with pedestrian-only high streets admitted defeat and abandoned the projects long ago.

But Miami Beach’s Lincoln Road, which closed to vehicles in the early 1960s, remains among the minority of pedestrian malls still blocked to cars.

“People ask why. The ‘why’ is that the most-visited destination in Florida is the beach,” said Stephen Bittel, head of Terranova Corporation and a major property owner on Lincoln Road. The eastern end of Miami Beach’s pedestrian mall is just a couple blocks from the ocean.

“That’s the starting magic,” Bittel said. “The beach is what draws people to Miami, and when they’re not at the beach, they’re at Lincoln Road.”

Stephan Schmidt, an associate professor of city and regional planning at Cornell University, agrees. For an article published last year in the Journal of Urbanism, Schmidt analyzed more than 120 pedestrian malls and found barely 40 still existed decades after the pedestrian mall fad. The rest – including pedestrian malls in Chicago, Galveston, Texas, Yuma, Ariz., and Fayetteville, N.C. – long ago reopened to vehicle traffic.

Among the survivors are pedestrian malls in college towns such as Boulder, Colo., and Charlottesville, Va., and near major tourist attractions in Boston and New Orleans.

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93MiracleMile-2

Miami’s First-Ever Carbon-Neutral Building Announced, with Glass that Generates Electricity

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THE NEXT MIAMI – September 13, 2022 In Coral Gables, a developer has announced plans for a mixed-use building that will be built with photovoltaic glass.

The electricity-generating glass will combine with other features will help to make it the first carbon-neutral building in Florida, developer Terranova Corporation says.

In addition to generating power, the high-performance glass will insulate the building, said Arquitectonica founder Bernardo Fort-Brescia, who is designing the building.

A high-tech battery system is planned to collect and store the solar energy, and will be used to operate systems including elevators.

There will also be new air conditioner technology installed that needs just 30% of the energy compared to conventional A/C systems.

The building will be known as 93 Miracle Mile.

“93 Miracle Mile will be a revolutionary project,” said Stephen Bittel, the founder and chairman of Terranova.

Bittel said he expects the building to be a blueprint for other developers and city planners.

The four-story building will have 36,482 square feet of space. There will be restaurant on the ground floor, retail on the second and third levels, and office space on the fourth level. A rooftop terrace will be covered with a trellis.

The building would be the first to be built under Coral Gables’ new Miracle Mile Overlay code, and fully complies with zoning rules. The design includes stone cladding and a rooftop suspended orchid garden.

Construction is expected to begin as soon as city approvals and permits are obtained, with delivery one year later.

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