Wynwood Design and Review Committee - Regular Meeting

We'll tee up with the roll call. Alan Kett.

Present.

Kathy Leff. Zion Mass. Absent. Miguel Omar. Present. Heidi Weigand. And Jared Brunabend. Present. And Tom Dunlap, present. Thank you all very much. If we could do the Pledge of Allegiance, and then we'll have the lobbyist note and get underway. Super, thank you. I guess I should call this to order.

Yes. Any person who is lobbying pursuant to Chapter 2, Article 6 of the City Code must register with a city clerk and comply with related city requirements for lobbyists before appearing before the Wynwood Design Review Committee. The person may not lobby a city official, board member, or staff member until registering. A copy of the City Code section about lobbyists is available in the city clerk's office or online. at www.munico.com. Any person may be heard by the Wynwood Design Review Committee through the chair for not more than two minutes on any proposition before the committee unless modified by the chair. Members of the public wishing to address the body may also do so by visiting MiamiGov.com backslash virtual boards to submit their written comments via the online comment form. The comments submitted through the comment form, if any, have been distributed to the committee members and the city staff that the committee members can consider the comments prior to taking any action and will be included as part of the public record for this meeting the online comment form will remain open during the meeting to accept comments and distribute to the committee members up until the chairperson closes public comment additionally the city will accommodate any speakers desiring to appear in person when addressing the committee the member of the public must first state his or her name his or her address and what item will be spoken about A video of this meeting may be requested at the Office of Communications or viewed online at www.miamigov.com. Please silence all cell phones and other noise-making devices. Any person with a disability requiring assistance, auxiliary aids, and services for this meeting may notify the city liaison. Please note, board members may have generally been briefed by city staff on the items on the agenda today. In order to ensure that the public has the ability to view The meeting, the city's communications department will broadcast the meeting. The meeting can be viewed live on Miami TV, miamigov.com TV backslash TV, or Comcast Channel 77 within the city of Miami. The broadcast will also have closed captioning. Thank you.

Thank you. Minutes approval. Before we do, just one quick edit. Is it possible to remove item one on the... cover page it was the minutes approval from November 4th did we not do that or is that just a lingering I think you have an outdated print because the one that I have on my screen says March 10 very good that's I have item one and item two yeah let's go ahead and do the approval of item two and if we would check if you look at item one I think it's just a hangover from an old format that we use.

Oh, I see. The minutes approval in here for this number two instead of number one.

Thank you. Yeah. I've been there and done that. Okay. In minutes approval then, can I have a motion for the approval of the March 10, 2026 WDRC minutes? Wonderful. Thank you. Can we have a second, please?

Second.

Thank you. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Superb. Great, guys. Thank you for that. Let me just catch my notes, please. Very good. Public comments. Are there any public comments this morning?

No, there are no public comments, Chair. And if you would like, I could request to close public comments.

Agree. Thank you. Public comments closed. Skating right along, were there any requests for absence waivers?

Yes, sir. Member Zion Mass requests. Very good.

We still have a quorum in his absence?

Yes. And can we get a motion for?

Yes, I'm so sorry. Motion for approval of member Zion Mass' absence waiver. Got a first? Second. And a second. Thank you very much. All in favor?

Aye.

Thank you all. All righty. With the housekeeping done, we'll come back over to the first of two WDRC resolutions that we have on the agenda today.

And item number one, Ricky and Andrea. WDRC item number one, minute track 19178, property address 2431 Northwest 2nd Avenue, project name Starbucks. Location NRD 1, Wynwood NRD, transit zone T50. Application type, signage, WDRC requirement, all non-painted building identification and business identification signs within NRD 1, 4, T5, T6, and D1 transit zones shall adhere to the Miami Zoning Code Article 10, Table 15 sign standards and Wynwood signage guidelines. Thank you. Thank you.

Welcome back.

Yes. Gina Penny, Atlas Signs, representing Starbucks. The address is 1077 West Blue Heron Boulevard, West Palm Beach, Florida. I'm here requesting approval for the Blade sign. It's a pedestrian-orientated signage consistent with the Wynwood design standards. This is the site location that we're asking for it, which is the 2451... Northwest Second Avenue, just a general elevation page of the building. The proposed blade sign is going to be a double-faced sign, 30 by 30, which equates to 6.25 square feet. It's amounted over nine feet above grade, soft internal illumination, and then pedestrian orientated. The site conditions, wall art is existing and was a condition of approval given for the actual Starbucks flat wall sign. It's the existing signage of 17.18 square feet of sign area. The design details, it's a slim three inch cabinet, matte black aluminum structure, white acrylic faces with emerald graphics, intentionally modest and restrained Below typical visual threshold and district, design is architecturally integrated and subordinated to the building facade. Subordinate. The illumination approach, soft internal illumination, no exposed LEDs, no glare or digital elements. Lighting is consistent with ambient storefront illumination, typical in Wynwood. The code consistency, pedestrian-orientated projecting sign, minimal sign area at 6.25 square feet, integrated with building architecture, no excessive illumination or digital display, consistent with the intent of the windward overlay, which prioritizes pedestrian scale and visual integrated signs. This is projected blade signs are a common and accepted condition throughout the district. This includes illuminated blade signage like the one that we're requesting. This is examples of other locations that have a similar sign. Why we believe approval is warranted is it supports pedestrian first design intent. It reflects established Wynwood signage patterns, maintains appropriate scale and placement, enhances visibility without visual impacts. The request aligns with both the letter of the intent and with, I'm sorry, with the letter and the intent of the Wynwood overlay. And that concludes my presentation. I'm here for questions. Nicely done. Thank you.

Any comments or any questions, team? If not, can I have a motion regarding the Starbucks blade sign?

Motion to approve the Starbucks blade sign.

Thank you. Got a motion. Do we have a second?

Okay. Is that you, Heidi?

Thank you. All in favor? Aye. That's unanimous.

Nicely done.

Nice package. Appreciate it. Thank you.

All right. Have a good day.

You as well.

All righty. WDRC item number two, minute track ID 19180, property address 46 Northwest 27th Street, project name Cyan Gallery. Location, 46 Northwest 27th Street, transit zone T5L. Application type, signage.

Thank you.

Good morning, my name is Teresa Pino, and the address of the location is 46 Northwest 27th Avenue.

Could you, and you, I'm sorry, I'm showing my age. Could you pull that down closer through there? Yeah, can you hear me better now? I sure can now, thanks.

The address is 46 Northwest 27th Avenue, And the job is called Scion Gallery. I'm here on behalf of my client. It's a reverse channel letter. I only have this. I mean, I can give you copies of it. Okay.

We'll look at this and we will pass it along.

I have other ones if you need them.

Oh, you got extras? Oh, splendid. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

It's a reverse channel letter, and it has warm white LEDs. It's going to be painted gold. I did bring a sample of the actual color of the paint. That's how it's going to be painted, the color of it. Because the actual facial of that building is black, the client wanted something nice on the building. It does fall in the category of what's required by the city. Next door is very simple. I mean, it's going to halo on the back with a warm white. We did actually do a couple of blocks, like two doors down, we did actually another sign there called House of Maine. that it was exactly the same thing. It's just that that facial was white and we did black reverse channel letters there.

Okay. If no other comments, I'd open it to any questions or thoughts from the board.

No comments.

Anyone? Fantastic. And how about a motion for approval? Thank you. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Miguel. All in favor of approval of item 191.80, Cyan Gallery?

Aye.

Aye. Well done.

Thank you.

Fabulous. And with that, Not that those two items weren't fun, but now the real fun.

Now it's time for the real fun, yes. So WDRC discussion item for today, we have Gensler that is here. They have a presentation for us to guide us through this workshop. We also have a few members of the previous WDRC board. So we have Victor Sanchez, Amanda Herzler, Shamim Wittgensler, and we're hoping to get Andres Arcila as well, but he's probably running a little bit late. From the Wynwood bit, we have William Kelly and David Lerner. Would you guys mind coming closer? Could you please sit a little bit closer?

Can you guys hear me? The microphone's working great. Yes, please don't be shy. The ex-WDRC members certainly were not shy before. Pleasure meeting all of you. I served on the previous WDRC, so thank you for what you're doing. I know it takes time, but it's a great service. So this is meant to be an interactive workshop. It's not meant to be us presenting to you anything. As you know, the city has been talking about creating a urban design or a design vision plan for Wynwood. This has been in the talks for at least a year or two years. So the funds have been finally released. Of course, we're thankful to the bid. David is here representing the bid as well. And so we have started the process. So we have had some preliminary meetings so far with the city just to give us some guidelines in terms of what they're looking for. And now we've started the process of really speaking to the stakeholders and other individuals to see how we can benefit from your experience and everybody else's knowledge. And then we can incorporate all of that into the final package. So very quickly, Uh, the team here from Gensler, uh, not all of us are here. You can see the people that are actually working on it. So Dawn, who is our principal and managing director of the project is also here, but not, uh, able to come today. Obviously I'm here. Uh, Elaine is a strategy and engagement leader. She was not able to make it. She's traveling today. Same with Evan. Moriel Hoffman is also strategy leader in our office in Miami. And as you know, our offices are also located in Wynwood. And of course, Sarah Thompson, who is our graphic designer and who's going to be adding the swizzle to that vision design plan. The idea is that it's not just going to be a boring set of guidelines. We want it to represent Wynwood. So the intention is that it's actually supposed to be graphically compelling as well. So just very quickly, the objective. It's basically to define a shared neighborhood vision that reflects Wynwood's history, character, and evolution. And then the idea is to create a clear and visually compelling design intent booklet to both entice and provide guidance for future development. So as WDRC members and ex-members, everyone is aware that it is not the most specific thing to be sitting on the board or to try to give guidance on the design of the projects that come through. So the idea is how can we make it a little bit easier both for the developers and the architects who are designing it but also for the WDRC and future WDRC to have a document that could at least begin to guide the discussions. So that's really the idea and the intention. So let me turn it over to Moriel.

So thank you everybody for being here today. We're really excited to hear your ideas and dig into how we can help make the process better, smoother to ensure a great future for Wynwood as it starts to rapidly evolve and grow. So the format of this session today is really meant to be a discussion. We want to hear a lot from everyone. We're already kind of well into our introduction, you know, giving a little context. We'll do a quick round robin. And then we have a few topics we'll get to. So first, the Keep, Toss, Create, which is really to talk about the process for applications and approvals and all of that. What's working well? What's not working? What are some processes or tools or systems we would want to maybe create to make it a better process? And then we'll talk about prioritizing impact, which is after all of our discussion about keep, toss, and create, what are some topics that we really want to make sure are critical that are addressed in this document that we're creating that would really help make this a better path for development in Wynwood? And finally, we'll close with some ideas about the future. And some of the themes that we're thinking about as we're developing the guidelines, doing our kind of background research and context and exploring what is in Wynwood today, but is the neighborhood's character and history and identity. So really preserving the ethos of where Wynwood came from as we kind of look forward and evolve. This kind of helpful today, we talked about signage on the agenda today. But signage, wayfinding, event activation, so kind of the applied graphics, like how are people getting around and navigating? If there's an event pop-up, how does that layer of information kind of integrate into the city? The public realm, streetscape and connectivity, so the kind of pedestrian comfort, walking around, navigating trees and greenery, how the paseos are connecting to each other, it's kind of thinking about how the person is experiencing navigating Wynwood. Art application materials and facade design. So this is really about the kind of tactile and visual experience of Wynwood as you're going around. It kind of really gives the sense of place. And then the building shape and ground floor strategy. There are opportunities, especially with, you know, the narrow sidewalks that are existing today. How can we start to carve out the ground floor shape to create a better experience as you're going around the neighborhood? And with that, we'd love for everybody to share a quick thought like around Robin. What do you like about Wynwood and how would you describe the visual identity? Please kick us off.

Not to put anyone on the spot.

I think, I guess my first foray into Wynwood was probably around 2008. The first time I got involved as an owner was probably 2012. Obviously a lot has changed. I feel like it's a, and I guess I wear a owner developer hat. I'm not an architect. I feel it's very difficult to keep Wynwood's character of what it was then when everyone is trying to build a project that financially works and maxes out the square footage or units that you can build because of the land prices. And so I think that we have lost our grit. We have lost our art in a sense. I feel like a lot of the art is forced. I think there's potentially better ways of accomplishing that. I think there's been some pretty bad examples of facade treatments. I'll stop there and let others add. Maybe I'll have more later.

Thank you, Jerry.

Yeah, so my name is Miguel. So I grew up in Miami. So I mean, my first memory of Wynwood was that Roberto Clemente Park back in 1997. So it was, Wynwood was very different place back then. You know, I'm an architect, but I think what I love about Wynwood I'm sort of in a crossroad here because as my colleague was saying, what I love about Wynwood is the density, is that it's a walkable area, right? That it's full of arts. There's few places that are like that. But I feel in the sense of, to me, is how do we move forward? And what strategies do we use to keep Wynwood? I mean, it's never going to be what it used to be, right? Because places... progress, there's development, there's people coming in, but to me, how do we keep it so the people that are the locals from Wynwood are could afford to be in Wynwood. I used to work in Wynwood and I used to have coffee at this place, I'm not gonna mention, but a cup of coffee was $20, right? So it's how do you keep Wynwood so that, it's still architecturally a pedestrian friendly place, but how do you keep it to that scale? And I think that's the challenge and that's like a, a challenge that we have to work with, you know, keeping at that scale at the same time. We know it's going to grow. We know, but how do we keep it so it could have the soul of what it used to be, right, and what it could be, because I think it's an amazing place. Again, not that many places are like it. Thank you.

The things that I've enjoyed or that I like about Wynwood, I guess, over the past 20 years or so is... something that's expressed earlier, which is the walkability of the neighborhood. It feels like you can just go from one end to the, I mean, you can go from one end to the other end just on foot. You don't have to drive. It's unlike many of the neighborhoods here in Miami. You know, the reason to walk around Wynwood would either be to go to your favorite little hole-in-the-wall place or really from myself, you know, over the past 20-something years would be to discover new art And so when you walk up and down the streets, there's a lot of discovery. The art was constantly changing and evolving at the whim of whatever visiting artist you know, showed up in Wynwood. And I think that that's diminished in the past five years as new developments have gone up. Those developments have not created spaces for that whimsical, you know, improvised art moment that Wynwood was so known for. Thank you.

You're welcome. So I'm a newcomer in the scheme of things I've been involved in Wynwood for five or six years and have been based here from an office point of view for about three. And so, you know, the old, I'm showing my age again, whatever song that was, you don't know what you got until it's gone. I can't appreciate what was here 20 years ago, but I can appreciate what was here five or six years ago. And what I like about it is, and it's probably there's not as much of it as there was 20 years ago, but I still feel like It's a place that if somebody says to you, where are you going tonight? It's like, we're going to Wynwood. And I'm a hybrid. I'm a developer and a landscape architect. So I kind of do look through two different lenses from time to time. And I spent 15 years at Disney. And I tell people often that at Disney, we would spend millions or billions trying to create places that have a place, like Wynwood has. So we're blessed with this head start. It may not be as much of it as we had, but if we do things smartly, wisely, and timely, we can keep enough of what's there that there still exists. So the short answer is I like it because it's a place. I won't repeat the reasons that it's a place, but it exists.

Oh, okay. So my knowledge of Wynwood goes back to the 70s, the mid-70s when I used to work there. I was working for the city of Miami when it was a garment industry. And so just over the years, just the whole transformation has been pretty radical, but really interesting because it really did, even though it became what was called the art district, you know, the murals and all that. I mean, it actually did have a sense of murals and graphics. So I think the identity for me, the visual identity, It's always been graphic, even though it's changed over time, and changed to reflect the contents of what's there. I mean, it was a factory town, and now it is sort of factory. It's the production of real estate. And I think that in some senses it's good, but it's also, you know, how do you move forward? And not only because the cities evolve, and they do that organically, so how do you, through workshops such as this, begin to think about how do you retain a sense and how do you not erase, completely erase the history and the culture of what was there, but then how do you move forward because everything should reflect our times. And then what I do think is really critical is about the maintenance of a sense of place. I mean, it does have a neighborhood feel. I think the opportunity as somebody who works in Bakehouse Art Complex nearby, the opportunity not only to a sense of place, but to connect to the adjacencies, like how not to just think of, Wynwood as a siloed, you know, hipster community, but a place that really connects to other places. And that also helps other places think of their neighborhoods as place or potential for place making.

Thank you.

So like you, I'm born and raised here in Miami. So I am very familiar with Wynwood and growing up and seeing its evolution is super interesting. I think everybody knows Wynwood and appreciates it for its unique style, the food, the art. It's what really makes it interesting. To Kathy's point, I agree. I think one of the things living in this space is trying to see how Wynwood could be better identified more than just a two or three or four block area but incorporating the entirety of its area and how we're able to do that and both to the north as it integrates with Midtown, but also to the west and to the south where we still have some quasi-impoverished areas. How do you really continue that sense of community that it has without it having a dead stop at 20th Street? And people are then... anxious about walking, but Wynwood as I know it is really that couple of blocks that's super interesting, a lot of fun. I think that is what we all know Wynwood and what I'm hoping to see is how we integrate to those adjacent areas.

Thank you. And what's interesting is that the common thread that's kind of connecting a lot of what we've heard so far obviously is the art component obviously an incredibly important portion of it, but the idea of Wynwood as a district, distinct place and a space, which is an interesting way of thinking about the neighborhood, but it still doesn't define very much, right? And so this is the, for me, the unique and interesting thing about this endeavor of what we're trying to do is, yes, it is a district, it is a place. What makes it a place? How can we continue keeping it a place? Obviously, when you upzone, and there's nothing we can do about zoning, if I can build eight to 12 stories, it's gonna change the character of what used to be a one-story warehouse. Like, we know that, however, what are the things that we can continue to keep throughout the development of Wynwood, because obviously it's going in a certain trajectory. But let me continue now with our ex-WDRC members. Yes, and I'm gonna give them the mic as well, yeah.

Hi, Victor Sanchez, former chairman for

way too long since the beginning of the WDRC, inception of the WDRC back in 2016. I've been involved in Wynwood since 20 years, 2006 when we started. What I like about the neighborhood is that there is a sense of character, right? It has an identity, and it has brand recognition. I can't think of any other place, at least in South Florida, where that many businesses are branded Wynwood. Wynwood Square, Wynwood Plaza, Wynwood Walls, Wynwood this, that says that there is value in the brand and businesses and owners recognize that and people that visit the neighborhood understand that as well. What I like about the neighborhood is that it evolved organically. This was not a master plan city place, not that I have anything against city place, but your typical town center that was envisioned in one set of plans and it was designed, take Midtown for example. This happened organically. It happens through the collaborative effort of many stakeholders that sat down for many times and developed a plan going forward, a zoning plan, a business improvement district to take the neighborhood to the next level and make it evolve and progress. What you see now, it's a product of all those efforts And I think it's for us to look at it now and look at it in retrospect and say, okay, has the neighborhood deviated from that original vision for the good or for the bad? What tweaks can we possibly come up with to correct course and make sure that all of the concerns are addressed? You know, the art, for example, yeah, I agree with Alan. I think that art, it's part of the character of the neighborhood and we have to be very mindful and careful that we preserve that and that art it's done not as an afterthought but as a integrated component to all of the projects right that artists and are brought out at the beginning of a process because people are still looking it is still what gives a neighborhood character and before I pass it on to Amanda one thing an anecdote because sometimes we spend too much time in the neighborhood you lose perspective of what it really looks like and I told this story some people before. A year ago, my kid and his school were hosting a delegation of students from Finland. And we toured them through windward walls. And the director of the school asked me, he said, why is this neighborhood, why does it look different than anywhere else in Miami? And that really struck me, because I've been here for 20 years, and it kind of looks perspective of it. There is something unique about it. It is not that it's wrong, right? There are projects that you may like that you may not like as much, but there is a very unique factor that distinguishes the neighborhood from anywhere else in South Florida. So I think that this is a great opportunity to analyze that, find the areas that need to be corrected, come up with great ideas to hopefully guide it the way we all envision it to be. And I am more than happy to be part of that effort.

Thank you. Hi, everyone. Amanda Hertzler. I think to piggyback on what Victor was saying, I think what's I've always said Wynwood is a brand, and it's what brought the developers here. It's what brought the evolution of Wynwood here. It's the story that was being told and the brand that was being developed. And I think that organic development is what makes it unique. I think the ability that, you know, to Victor's point, interested parties coming together, sharing in that brand and allowing it to evolve. And I say that not only from a brand perspective, but from a zoning perspective, working with city officials and allowing the zoning to evolve, admitting, oh, we didn't get that right, we need an amendment, we need to go back, we need to think about things differently. The challenge, I think, and it's a big challenge, right? For everyone in this room, but certainly for Shamim and your team to understand that that brand is what brought everybody here. And as we start to look at the evolution of the place that we're talking about, how do we hold on to the brand? Or is the brand, does the brand need to evolve as well? You know, that is, I think, the bigger question of the brand that made everyone come. Do we need to continue to hold that up on a pedestal? I have opinions on this, but I'm gonna ask the question. Does that brand need to stay stagnant and everything else around it evolve to try to keep that brand, even if it's contrived? To the point that Alan made, I totally agree. There is no longer street art. There is very contrived, stagnant murals that are being mandated by government to have. Is that really the brand that Wynwood was, or are we creating this morphed, kind of contrived version of the brand to fit within this new era? I think it's a challenge that we all have to understand and try to solve, but I think the basic essence of the question is, Does the brand need to stay stagnant while it evolves or is Wynwood going to change? And I think that's why, to be honest with you, we're all having a really hard time answering this question because we haven't defined what the brand is. What do we want it to be? What do we want Wynwood to be when it grows up? And are we too rooted in the original brand and the original story? Or is it worth saving and preserving, but how do we do it to keep the organic quality of the neighborhood? Because what we've been doing, and I think To everyone's credit, but also I think has been somewhat of a misstep, wouldn't necessarily call it a failure, we've been putting constraints on it. And that is the antithesis of organic, right? We've mandated that the brand be upheld in a very formal kind of law-evoking way, whereas that was never Wynwood to begin with. It was never contrived. It was never forced. It was organic, and we're losing that. And I don't know how you manipulate those two things. So I don't know that I answered your question because I don't think you can, to be honest with you. I think I will say on a positive note and then I'll pass it. I think what is really interesting that came out of a zoning exercise is connectivity. And I think it goes back to everyone talking about this is a walkable area, it's connectivity, it's this and that. It was an industrial zone. The blocks didn't make any sense from a retailer perspective. It was too deep. From a development perspective, you couldn't connect to streets because they were too long and nobody walks in the heat. So we came up with this very kind of appropriate master plan and this kind of invention, not to claim it as ours, obviously, but the idea of, Paseos and connectivity made sense. And I think that's one positive thing that from a zoning perspective we've really introduced and tried to keep the scale small. But I think we've got a lot more work to do. And I think it starts with defining what is the brand of Wynwood when it finally grows up.

Hi, Andres Arcila with Natural Fish and Landscape Architecture. I've been involved in Wynwood for about 15 years. We had the privilege to work on one of the first adaptive reuse projects, which was the arcade. And from there, we moved on to doing the first largest building in Wynwood back then, which was Wynwood 25. And since then, we've worked on numerous projects. projects. We've had the pleasure of working with Tom on some of his projects and with Alan on one of the projects that I was working on. I don't know if you recall which was, it was the one where we were able to salvage some of the doors and I called you because I thought that was sort of important and where I'm going with that is that the thing that I personally like about Wynwood is the raw quality that still exists there but that it existed previously. What do I mean by the raw quality is that it was a, you know, still somewhat is but it was mainly a place where, There was a lot of creative energy with no real guidelines, boundaries, limitations, bumpers, which is what's happened over the years as the neighborhood has grown in development. has come along the way. So I think that that was the best quality of it. And from a design standpoint, I went to architecture school. But I grew up doing graffiti, listening to hip hop, so on and so forth. And I've always been like in these two worlds where one is felt a little very refined. I worked with luxury products but I've always liked the quality of the rawness of some of these things is what has inspired me since since young and I think Wynwood was the place that I found that were these two kind of began to collide and it gave space for more authentic expression right but what I I think what's happened over the last years is that that's kind of gone away. And the beauty of creative solutions without being overly thought don't exist anymore, right? So like, even as an architect or designer, you would go and you would see artists figured out something a way that you would never think of doing it that way and it would like spark imagination. But now I think with the development, right, like you begin to see how the character of the neighborhood is changing to for lack of a better word, being tacky to a certain degree. Because now you see like some development that's not the right way trying to bring something just to catch attention, to be an Instagram moment. And the quality of these things are not raw. They're not sincere. They're not authentic. They feel cheap. And just from a landscape standpoint, one thing that you guys know I've been against is is fake plants and how I see these plastic plants hanging off of buildings. So it just doesn't feel right to a certain extent. However, I think during Music Week, I love music. I spend a lot of time there during music. And you walk around and the energy is just incredible, like if you see crazy legs outside your guy's store, and then you have places like Dante's, like little hubs that are still very authentic, and I think that draws a lot of attention from outsiders to still want to come to the neighborhood. I think the other thing that I would say is growing up as a teenager here in South Florida, back then, really, we didn't have many places to go to except the beach. Like, you know, it wasn't even called South Beach back then. It was called the the beach and then there was a little bit going on here in Coconut Grove, but the beach back then, it was very one dimensional in the sense that it was like clubs. And then also the nature of the beach is that it's very sort of horizontal. It's like these roads that just go in and it's not a really defined grid because everything happens on the main roads as opposed to Wynwood is a grid of exploration. And then you have these moments that are very unexpected. So the point about that is that I think for younger, people, when I do go in the evenings, it's chaotic, right? But I would say that it's chaotic, but much safer than what we had years ago. Like, I think people have, even the young people have learned to sort of navigate the territory and behave better. Back then, like the beach was not a safe place to be. It was a lot of gangs walking around. But yeah, I think the neighborhood is still exciting. About the question about the brand, I'm not even sure what the brand really is anymore. Maybe that's something to be defined. We also know that there is a big amount of land in Wynwood that is held by one stakeholder and I think the future of the neighborhood We're just going to rely heavily on what happens there. And the other aspect of it is just there's a lot of talk about walkability. And yeah, you could walk the neighborhood. But during the day, especially as you head into summer, it's not a pleasant place to walk. Why? Because there's not enough shade. It's hot. Some of the sidewalks are not in good condition, so I think for the future, in terms of walkability, that's probably one of the biggest aspects. And tying that into what we actually have, the work that we've done in the neighborhood, there's the Wynwood Streetscape Master Plan, which I think conceptually great idea to try to create something a little more cohesive. But we find as practitioners that as we're implementing these things, some things work and some don't. So my take on it right now is that right on paper, really cool, like graphics, so on and so forth. it restricts us from a landscape standpoint as to the sizes of trees, where we could place them. And then especially with the hardscape, it's very busy and fussy, right? Because then you have the regular concrete, then you have the pervious concrete, then you have your EC mulch, right? And then the question is even like the pervious concrete, when you implement it, how much of that is actually effective because of the level of compaction. So it's a really pervious, right? So I think what I would suggest when it comes to that is figuring out a way to maybe like, right, we need to have these guidelines, we need to have systems, but to maybe create something that is more flexible to allow for that creativity and rawness of what the neighborhood has offered from the beginning to continue to flourish. So those are my thoughts.

Thank you. Great discussion points. Of course, we have some people here from the audience, bid members and city officials. Anything you would like to add? Sure.

Hi, David Lerner. I'd say that this project was something that occurred when I was walking around the neighborhood. Part of the reason why we're all sitting here today is because of an idea that came to my mind walking through Wynwood, someone who's been on the streets for 20 plus years, and recognizing that, wow, we've come a long way, but also you know, a couple years ago, like, wow, what happened to Wynwood? This was at the turning point of when buildings started to go up. You know, Wynwood has always been a place of creativity, of art, of exploration, of place, all these things that are what created the culture and created that, you know, we always say the lightning in a bottle experience in the neighborhood. And at some point, we did our best job, I'd say maybe 12 years ago, when we you know, created the NRDA1 and the bid and tried to, you know, enable the neighborhood to start on a strong footing and grow and become the neighborhood that it has become. But, you know, there were rules put in place, there was guidelines, there was direction at a high level that was provided that enabled the WDRC board to, you know, do their best to try to support that vision. But a lot has changed. The neighborhood has grown and developed. And now is a really great time to recognize what worked, you know, what Wynwood was, what it is today, and how do we now encapsulate that for the future when people go to build and develop new buildings, adaptive reuse? How do we, you know, support that for the next 10, 20 years going forward to keep the neighborhood such a special place? And when I say, you know, I walked around and said, what happened to Wynwood? You know, you have new developments that You know, it could look like you could be in Midtown or be in any other neighborhood in Miami, and that's not, you know, what Wynwood is. You know, Wynwood has become a name that people across the world, in some of the greatest creative neighborhoods across the world, Wynwood is in a list of that. And if we don't do something now, then we just become a forgotten neighborhood, and we become not so important. So to me, art is extremely important. It's what brought all the creatives that created all the cool restaurants, that created all the cool retail stores and thoughtful experiences in the neighborhood. And they want to be in neighborhoods like that. So to me, it's important to keep supporting that. And art is a key component of that that lets creativity thrive. So now, what is the soul of Wynwood? For sure, art. But to me, it's evolved to just the the creative neighborhood. Art is creative. Tech companies and startups are creative. Thoughtful, great restaurants are creative. Interesting retail is creative. How do we double down and just make the creatives feel like they have a neighborhood to come to or want to be in? And so now's the chance, in my opinion, know get all our heads together think about what worked and what do we need to do when neighborhood planning building new buildings layer and all these other important things like wayfinding and communal spaces places for people to find shade and relax and enjoy paseos or whatever it may be to really create a neighborhood that feels like people want to be a part of and to further their creative identities because that's why people come to this neighborhood. And I think now's a great opportunity. So I'll leave it at that. But thank you all for your time and input.

It's okay. Just not a lot to add. A lot of great thoughts here. But I probably give two to three tours of Wynwood a week on a golf cart. very Florida, and it's, you know, I came here from New York, I've only been here six months, so I'm very, very new to Wynwood, but it is incredibly exciting. Everyone I give a tour to, what they love is the ground level art. I mean, it's, let's be clear, it's not the taller buildings, it is the density, it is the walkability, it is the place, and You know, and certain Paseos have some charm, others don't, but I think, you know, I came here, I lived in Williamsburg for 15 years, I can see potentially the trajectory and the brand of Wynwood as it changes, but it's still, we still have something more special here, and it is around the unexpected moments, the adaptive reuse of the buildings, you know, and the mix of building typology, even the quirky streetscape with the zigzag sidewalk. I mean, it all adds up to a really special place. So I know we have a lot more to say, but there's a lot of excitement out there for new people coming into the neighborhood. You all have been here a long time and seen it change. It's still a pretty great place.

Great.

Paul Genovese, Chief of Urban Design with the city. I mean, so many great comments from everyone already. I think all of us realize that, you know, Wynwood's kind of become the premier destination in Miami-Dade County. You know, you have family or friends visit from out of town. What used to be Miami Beach is the place they would ask you to take them is now Wynwood. And, you know, the reception that it gets from anyone that I take around is, you know, universally loved. What I think really works well about Wynwood is the smaller scale and not necessarily talking vertically, but horizontally. Compared to a lot of the other neighborhoods, you really have, you know, this fine grain of storefronts, retail, art, activities. You know, you can walk one block and kind of experience so many different facades, different uses, whereas, you know, in kind of the more downtown areas like Brickell and World Center, it's much more larger scale, a lot more of this monotony of similar architecture. So as it goes into its next generation, I think trying to get that in some of the newer projects that are coming in to keep that fine grain horizontal pattern would be very successful. And I also think, you know, Wynwood is kind of bounded in, in a way. I mean, obviously, there are some good connections up towards Wynwood Norte and towards Midtown. But, you know, as you move further east, you hit the rail line. When you go west, you have I-95. You know, there's that large parcel that's still not been redeveloped, you know, to the south. unfortunately, Wynwood, you know, it's not as bad as some other parts of the city, but it still suffers from, you know, some of our narrow sidewalks that we have. And I think something that, you know, it'd be worth looking into is, you know, maybe a way that kind of, we create these, you know, vehicular kind of moments on the periphery where, you know, it's an easy way for someone to get dropped off coming from a different neighborhood. And then they permeate into the neighborhood, you know, either, you know, on their two feet or a shuttle or something like that, you know, I think everyone knows when you go there, you know, especially on a weekend night, you know, the traffic can be pretty unbearable. And if, you know, we can figure out a way to maybe minimize that effect and encourage, you know, more pedestrians, I'm not saying, you know, closing streets or anything, but it could be an option, you know, for bigger special events and things.

Well, thank you. Some great topics already. And thank you for sharing. I mean, it is, It's interesting because when we were given this task, the things that we were thinking about initially was that it's a little more difficult to define in terms of the guidelines of what it is exactly that you should do as opposed to what you should not do, which is an interesting way of thinking of design guidelines. We all know what you shouldn't do here, right? We don't want all glass curtain wall facades for obvious reasons right so that's an easy thing to say but in the inverse of that to be very specific specific about what it is exactly that you should do from a design perspective this is where that's the fine line right and so as we're beginning to continue with this we're going to get to a place eventually by the end of the exercise where these guidelines will be able to Not dictate because as a lot of people said, Wynwood is not about some type of a planned neighborhood necessarily. But there are things that are going to be easier for people to understand when they're coming to develop in terms of what not to do as opposed to what to do. We have more.

Plenty more. And so this is going to be kind of the meat of the conversation today. Keep Toss Create, I'm sure. Everyone has lots of things to say. It does get very easy to fall into the negative, and there may be many things that need to come up that don't work, which is a lot of what our document is going to help solve. But do keep in mind it's also important to say what is working so we're not accidentally changing something that's actually working pretty well, and we can learn from that. So with that, thinking about the process and the tools and the governments for submitting, approving, and implementing projects, what's working, what's not working, what would make this kind of a better process. We know there are lots of loopholes potentially or part of the approvals we've heard that something is signed off and then what happens in reality doesn't really quite, either from value engineering or other deviations, maybe doesn't express what the board approves and then the implementation is not what we hoped for. So with that, I'd love to open up to the floor. I'm sure everyone has thoughts.

Hi. Thank you for giving me one opportunity because I have to actually run. I do want to just say one thing that for those that have been on the board with me in the past, they know Pizzagate. They know what happened with one of my projects. I just want to use that as a story. We've had an opportunity to work a lot together and you do amazing adaptive reuse projects. I would just like to beg everyone that has any type of say in this to take a look at the process for adaptive reuse projects. in the city. It kills the retention of the soul, in my opinion, when we talk about the soul of Wynwood, it kills the retention of the soul of Wynwood when someone that is simply trying to open a one-story warehouse building and put two new windows in it to wait 12 months to have to do that in the city. I may be exaggerating a little bit, but my story of Pizzagate, it was a great New York pizza guy came down, wanted to open up a pizza shop in 200 square feet on 2nd Ave. And it took him 12 months to get a window permit. He lost his shirt and put his tail between his legs and went back to New York. He just wanted to sell pizza. And our permitting process, I think, does need to be specific and tailored to the larger developments to making sure that they are withholding or they are, you know, within the guidelines that we are producing. If someone just simply wants to do an adaptive reuse project to a building that has existed for 50 plus years, 75 years in some cases, I think we need to make that a lot easier for everyone, and I think it will actually help the soul of Wynwood by maintaining a lot of those buildings. So that's all I would say on keep, toss, or create. Don't know which part that falls into, but that would be my shtick. Thank you for your time.

Sorry, can I just add something before we do that? I went first, so I wanted to talk a little bit about the pedestrian experience. I think as part of this, we need to think about we have four user groups in Wynwood, right? We have residents, we have workers, we have locals, and we have tourists. And each has a different experience in Wynwood. For workers, we need to, it's hard for us collectively, but we need to find ways for them to spend more time in Wynwood, whether it's before work or after work. For residents, the same thing. We don't want them getting in their car and driving to Midtown to go do stuff. Part of that is getting more service-based uses into the neighborhood. Third is local residents. We talk about people from Kendall or Broward coming and visiting and how do we make their experience, maybe they only come once a year, but how do we How do we provide them resources, whether it's through signage? How do we get them to come and not just go eat and walk to Windward Walls and leave, but to really explore? And then more importantly, from the tourist perspective, you see a lot of them getting dropped off on whatever, 25th and 2nd Avenue on the double-decker bus. And unless there's a way to get them the information to know what other things are in Wynwood besides walking two blocks and getting back on that bus. We need to find ways of people walking around the neighborhood. So it's really four different user types and four different pedestrian experiences.

I think one of the I mean, you can separate this whole thing into two issues, right? There is the, what can we do from a design and experience standpoint of view, and what kind of policy or changes we can implement to ensure that we end up with the outcome that we all want, and then there's also the enforcement part of it, which is my biggest issue. And probably William's biggest issue too, right? We know we're dealing with traffic issues, we know we're dealing with walkability and the pedestrian experience, right, which is crucial for the neighborhood. And the enforcement of regulations that you guys as a board have actually established, right, when it comes to signage, when it comes to specific art requirements and things that as building gets done, right, we have zero way of guarantee that the outcome is going to be exactly what the board approved in some cases. There is also the disconnect between owners and tenants. Tenants that are not aware, do not understand what it is that they're allowed or not allowed to do. And it's a slippery slope, right? And that's where you end up with, I mean, all of you guys have walked the neighborhood on a Saturday evening. You can see the lack of regulation in action, right? The signage, the blinking lights, the green lights, the competition of everybody trying to draw attention, the speakers outside. I think that it is crucial to find a way to control and establish some sort of rules that improve the overall pedestrian experience. It could be phenomenal at any given time of the day. It could be horrendous at any given time of the day. And I think that William deals with this on a regular basis. It's about code enforcement. making sure that all the tenants and everybody that lives or works in the neighborhood follows certain rules that will ultimately allow people to have a better experience when it comes to neighbor, right? I think that we should focus on that. And again, that's more on the policy side, not necessarily on the design side. But that is something that should be a little bit of a low-hanging fruit when it comes to the street master street cake plant, which I concur with Andres. I'm sure by now we all have acknowledged that the plan was designed in a very holistic approach, assuming that everything was going to be new, right? When you have adaptive reuse projects, you cannot implement it because you don't have the setback, you don't have the way of. So are there any alternate solutions that would allow adaptive reuse projects to implement some sort of uniform design standard that improves the pedestrian experience without just leaving a blank piece of sidewalk there? Can we incorporate some of the furniture and lighting and some general landscaping here and there? I know there are some initiatives along those, but what can be done to just elevate the experience in the short term, long term too, without relying on everybody having to come up with a brand new project to be able to integrate the master secret.

Thank you. Further thoughts?

And to your point, while the enforcement is maybe more on the policy side, part of the purpose of this document, so part of it is to kind of attract developers, say, hey, Wynwood is this cool place where there's lots of creativity and great development happening, but it's also to serve as a sounding board and kind of a baseline for the vibe and the character that should be here. So this is important for us to know where it's difficult to enforce so that we can create a document that the board can then say, hey, you're not following the intent of this guideline. You need to revise it or change it before building it or if they build it and it does not adhere to the kind of design intent guidelines, that there's something to point to for enforcement. So while it may not be a policy document itself, it becomes a basis for what to look at in that sense.

Yes. I just wanted to add one thing for everyone to think about, to me that I think is important thing to answer, and everything else can come thereafter. What is art? Where should it be? How much of it should it be? And when I say what is art, how do you define it? And is it facades? Is it elsewhere? Is it sculptures? Is it hand-painted? And for the architects in the room, is there front facade ways to more creatively think about their front facade when you have all this extra stuff that gets added in like security exits the fire lines and all that stuff, which I know is important, but how can we think about the experience, pulling art down towards the ground, the amount of glass that should or shouldn't be on the ground floors. There are many good examples in the neighborhood and bad, but I think that is a really important starting point, in my opinion, when talking about this.

So I'll speak more. towards the landscape part of it. So one thing that I've been bringing up, it's the way that the code is currently written, it doesn't allow for landscape at the first layer. So we have some, we have a project in Wynwood that is on 20th Street. We're ending up with like a 15-foot sidewalk, which is brutal. Part of it is we can landscape the first layer, number one. And number two, from a policy standpoint for landscape, is there's the Wynwood Streetscape Master Plan. And sometimes we go through the entire process of designing based on that. Then we submit. It gets to public works. It's a county road. FDOT gets involved. There goes the landscape. So we end up with very limited moments for landscape. If there's a way to try to create more flexibility in the design so that we could still incorporate at least some decent shade trees, I think that would come a long way. Also, just from a policy standpoint, I know I haven't read the code in a bit, so I don't know where it stands now. But I think for adaptive reuse, there's some language or there was some language If you exceed the threshold of $1 million on the investment, then you have to redo the streetscape. So in today's economy, $1 million realistically is not much. So then for smaller adoptive reuse projects where they're spending money on interiors, windows, so on and so forth, it then triggers them to have to make these improvements that sometimes they doesn't allow within their budget to Amanda's point. Now on the flip side, I was also on a larger adaptive reuse project that has, is basically an entire block. It has an existing walls with a lot of mural art, but it sits, the wall is 10 feet, sits right on the property line. then they were asking, telling them they had to move the wall back to be able to fit the future Wynwood Streetscape master plan. That was number one. Number two, the improvements were really more about bathrooms, creating a bar that is a large venue, obviously over a million dollars, so then they wanted them to redo the entire block. They went back and forth, they finally agreed, okay, we'll make the investment and we'll make these improvements, but then there was conflict between the county and the city as to what actually gets done or not, and there went the project that we worked on for three, four years.

And just as a point, what's interesting about even though what we're focusing on is just design guidelines, right? The idea is that all of these ping points that we're bringing up, obviously the city is here. So they're listening to all of this stuff. We feel that this exercise can actually impact zoning specific to Wynwood in order to make some of these things more of a reality, because that's in the end, it is about enforcement. And obviously we're working together with the city. So this is a great exercise in us being able to highlight what is and what isn't working and then the city listening and potentially codifying some of these things. So this is another point that we're kind of interested in and hopeful about. So any other thoughts on this?

There was a project a few months ago, as it gets back to Pizzagate, where there was a woman who, I believe her family owned a building on North Miami and they wanted to renovate the inside to lease out to tenants. I think there was one or two tenant spaces And I was sitting over there and not participating that day. But I think she had a very hard understanding, understanding the art component that had to be on the facade. And ultimately, the tenant is going to be the one that wants to identify their space with the facade. I think we ended it up where she had to present something that she was going to be a placeholder, which I hate that word. And so she had a placeholder piece of art and the WDRC said she would have to come back with a replacement approval if it varied far from her initial design. And getting back to Pizzagate, I think if you are renovating a single story building that's not a full block, that's one or two or three tenants, Those tenants need to be able to identify their space and there should be a requirement that then the tenant has to do some treatment to the facade, but I think it's very hard for an owner of that building to come in. To get approval from this board to do their renovation not knowing who their tenants are going to be so I don't know if there's anything we can do to. make that process a little different. Maybe the tenant, when they're pulling their permit for their TI work, they have to show what their facade's gonna be, but this woman probably has at least a one-year construction project from the time she gets our approval to getting a city permit to doing her work well in advance before she's doing anything to the facade.

I think that's a very interesting point, and it's something that we've seen that's very challenging on the street when you're trying to determine what should be, and then maybe there's a conflict when the tenant comes in and they don't like it. Or you remove the possibility of anything organic happening a la the way it used to be in Wynwood. And so I've thought about this quite a bit, and I've considered... you know, what if there was some type of public art project within Wynwood where a building owner could submit a wall to a public art committee or a public art project, and it's known that it will be some type of a mural, you know, in these adaptive reuse projects or even in a new project, And there's an understanding that because it's under the purview of that committee that there will be approved art delivered and the project could continue without that sort of hiccup, right? It's almost like if the mural belonged to a mural festival and every year, every whatever, the festival comes in and recreates the murals, that building owner knows that they're in a program where the mural's constantly getting refreshed. It's not their responsibility. It's some art people's responsibility. And it sort of also alleviates the tenant a bit from having to figure out this whole art cool thing that we're talking about.

I agree with that. I think it's currently being done informally for some buildings. So I agree with what you're saying, but I'm trying to talk about something different, which is who is the high-end lighting company that came in one or two meetings ago, right? They came up with a very thoughtful art, what they're doing to their facade. They're the tenant. If that landlord came in a year before to renovate the inside of their building and we're forcing them to do art to their exterior without knowing who that tenant was, that art that was approved 12 months before, now a tenant signs a lease to move into that building. They don't want that art. They want something that they identify with, right? So making it up, say Vans comes to the neighborhood. they're gonna wanna do art based off of their branding, right? And so, if I'm the landlord of that building, to come get approval now, not having a tenant for the space, to me it's premature, but I think if you approve that renovation, then I think, Once that renovation is done by the building owner, that tenant who's going to need to do TI work and get a permit should have to come here and present what artwork they want to do on their facade.

Yeah, I think that sounds reasonable. That tenant could also, if there was this other system, could say, I have no ideas. Can I just donate that wall to the Wynwood Art Fund or to the Wynwood Public Art thing? You guys think about it. Get whoever graffiti guy is. Doesn't really matter to me. I want to be part of Wynwood. And then you move on, and then it's the responsibility of the art people.

Any other thoughts?

So I think that's a great idea. Just want to make sure I understand it. So for landscape, for example, there's mitigation and sometimes you have to pay into the tree trust fund, then the city's responsible for allocating the trees somewhere. Is that something along the same lines where

Yeah, it sounds just like that. There's a fund or there's a group that does it when it's paid into and then those experts will go and take care of it for you so that you don't have that hiccup of figuring it out, of hiring someone, of not knowing and learning and all these things.

And then the requirement then would be that you have to have art on your facade of some sort, right? And that's...

There's also something to be said about... We talked a bit about... We talked a bit about the loss of the dynamic art experience and how it gets refreshed and changed. So there's something to be said about the owner when the building is put up, there is an art moment. It's temporary. Maybe it comes from a public fund or there's... I know like some of your buildings, you have those kind of canvases that will change out. Maybe there's infrastructure for art to change. And then when a tenant comes in, something new arrives. So there's something about, you know, making sure that until there's a tenant, there's still kind of a visual experience with the purpose of it being temporary. Could be interesting.

And I would say that the branding moment actually for projects regardless of landlord or tenant from my perspective is first Wynwood which is how does the building and the art actually first of all reflect Wynwood secondly which in my opinion is really signage right that's where you implement if it's vans or whoever else they have a an area where they're able to specifically brand their project, right? So I guess my perspective is that you come to Wynwood because you want to be part of what's happening in Wynwood. And what's happening in Wynwood are these cool artistic moments. And if you're a company that wants to brand everything yourself, regardless of the neighborhood, you don't belong in Wynwood. I mean, again, that's just my perspective on it. But that's kind of the way I see the artwork, is it's first representing this neighborhood in Wynwood, and then second, which is where the signage moments are, and we have very specific guidelines that control that, that's where they're able to kind of put their mark, if you will. Just my perspective on that.

And with that, what about examples of when something was approved and it seemed like it was going to have that artistic kind of ethos to it, but then in reality, the implementation was maybe more flat or sterile? And kind of what the process has been with you know, seeing things not come quite to the fruition that you were expecting.

Well, I'm so new to this that I don't even, I don't think I could respond to any of that.

There's so many of them. There's, you can walk down every single street and you'll see at least one. In my opinion, it's the ones that are like the polka dots or the triangles, floating rather triangles because they ran out of budget and They had to put something there for code's sake. I don't know the name of the building, but on Northwest 29th Street, between 2nd and 3rd, there's this new project. West Elm is in the building. And so if you look at the mural that's facing east, it's a big white wall, and I think it has two or three triangles on it. And so that same building... where it's facing north, there's a beautiful mural. It has some kind of application to it. It's quite stunning, world-class, same building, the other elevation, it's kindergarten. And so how did that happen?

I'm also very new to the WDRC, but I've sat over there a few times. I think the approval of what's approved and then what ends up as the end result often aren't the same things, but I've also asked people what Who who oversees that who what what's the repercussion you know there are examples of I think garage treatments that were supposed to be one material ended up another material through value engineering. And I don't know that there's any repercussions and I don't know in the city code if there's any. Mechanism I don't think there is and so I don't know if there's an ability to change that and but we should look at it if. Especially for really large projects where where such treatment may be such a big portion of that block. How do we make sure that what we approve is what. It's built.

Yes, so I was listening to everything you were saying, agreeing with everything. I'm letting you have the conversation, but I do think of a few buildings that come to mind, like when we're talking about the quality of the materials and the art. I know of a couple in 27th Street that the art is very geometric. It doesn't really look like it came from an artist of the area or that it's related to Wynwood. But it does comply with that 25% art regulation, so I do think there is a moment in there to not define art, but maybe define what is not art. And that will be an example of that. Another thing that also came to mind is when we are reviewing the quality of materials, like Wynwood Society, for example, when the renderings and the elevations came in, the brick veneer that is on the front facade had depth, shadows, it seemed like it was going to be a very artistic facade. But now that it's installed and I walk by it, it looks very flat and it I was also there on a meeting for the when they were installing it, and it was very simple. It was just a construction guy doing the veneers on his own, very basic. As you mentioned, we don't have a follow up on that kind of instances. To West Elm, they came in, they had a master building permit. Now they came in as a tenant, you know, like a couple years after that building was approved. They're touching the facade, so they did renovations. What they showed us on the renderings didn't really translate to what's being installed right now. The tile that they have seems very flat. And we walked through it, you know, like, and we saw it. And there are many examples like this that, you know, like the artistic depth that we see on the computers is not what's being, you know, like represented in real life.

You know, one thing that comes to mind in hearing about this and earlier is, you know, where's maintenance in all of this? You know, when you paint these wonderful or mediocre murals and they start to vanish, who upkeeps them? Who comes back and bring them back to life? I think Wynwood Plaza, we were talking about earlier, the first project or an early project, those murals look terrible today. You know, they've lived for 10, 12, 14 years. They're basically vanishing. Where's the upkeep? How is that enforced?

That's actually a very interesting point to think about, which is the longevity of paintings within the environment of Florida. Obviously, it's not going to be that long, and it's usually if it's just painted stucco. Obviously, there's paints that you can use that can withstand the fading a lot more than the cheaper paints. But I do think that the notion of, I think you brought it up, the art rotating or the art program rotating over a certain amount of years is an interesting thought because it automatically resolves the maintenance if you have to redo it. it keeps up the tradition of Wynwood, which is not the same thing for 15 years. It keeps being updated. So that's an interesting, interesting point.

Back to the idea of kind of an art, to an art, sorry about that. All good. But back to the point of an art council or, you know, entity, you know, just add on to the, to the pros and cons of that, the idea of maintenance and upkeep. I think in a lot of cases, developers may come to Wynwood because they see the opportunity, they like it, but they also like the opportunity that it affords them. And a lot of what we're talking about today can almost go into, and I think you kind of framed this up earlier, kind of proactivity versus reactivity. And there's kind of two things that come to mind. One is if you say to a developer, you know, great building, you know, pay into a fund initially to have this portion of the building that's designated on the drawings as, you know, future mural, and we'll take it from there. And, you know, if I'm the developer, I'd like to have some approval rights of it, but not draconian approval rights. I just, you know... some reasonable amount but that there's an entity that i don't need to worry about did they get a quality artist did they get you know the right subject matter was it done in the right time from a staff point of view because i think i think a lot of the examples we see come to us guys are under the gun you know they've rented a space to a tenant the tenants almost build out and it's like oh i need a sign and they didn't they you know maybe in their mind they thought the sign was two weeks, and now all of a sudden it's two months, and we gotta be open for business. So I think it helps, I shifted to signage, but in the case of the mural, it helps them upfront know, I won't have to wrestle with this. Kind of glomming onto that, I think anybody loves a kind of a look book or a pattern book of ideas that they can day one look at and say, you know, reasonable expectations. I think, you know, the examples they use for blade signage, we had the Starbucks discussion earlier today. The person that presented that did a nice job. Here's six other examples that are in Wynwood. I think if that is available to people up front, whether it's online, whether it's, you know, something they hold It just helps them upfront set their expectations. And I can do this, I can do that, that's been acceptable, that's been acceptable. It can't be a contract, I get it, that they can't go to the book and say we want the sign on page 14, but I think it sets their thinking. and that would go for where does artwork go, that goes for where signage goes, and possibly even what is recognized as a great contemporary muralist. If I'm a developer, I'm new here, I build the building, Who paints these things? You know, who do I go to? And so it's a delicate balance. You don't want to dictate. You know, you have to pick from this list of 15, but it's suggested. If you want to just start your thought process, here's a way to do it. And the last thing would be for the... Who pays for the... The developer's done. He's done, he's gone, the building's sold out, whatever. Ten years from now, it needs repainted. Is that something that the bid... somewhere along the way that funds get paid into the bid and they have the ability, whether it's the bid or whether it's the group that you're describing, is there a marriage there so that somebody can fund to have that mural painted, replaced in 10 or 15 years.

But there's still an owner to that property.

Maybe or maybe not.

How could there not be an owner?

Well, an owner of the property. Yeah.

I don't think the bid should be getting involved in painting, funding private landlords' buildings. Whether it's a... If it's a condo project, well, now there's an HOA. They have to paint that building every 8 to 10 years anyway. So whether there's art on it or not art on it, they need to paint the building.

So do you put a... Do you put a... red tag on the wall and say violation and write a lien against the condo association?

I don't know. Does the city do that for buildings that have no art on them?

Actually, I mean, it's some kind of related. A lot of these large murals are on lot line walls and are going to be covered up. And I mean, I'm new, so forgive this ignorant question, but is I mean, are developers being directed that that counts as your art? I mean, I think of the Arlo Hotel and the condo buildings going up next door in the next couple of years, and they literally have nothing else anywhere on their building that I would consider to be art. And maybe the code was changed more recently to kind of acknowledge that, but if it hasn't been, that's definitely, you know... an issue in my mind.

That's a good point. That's a good point because a lot of those murals will be lost. They'll be lost, but I think that that's sort of the, I would say a bit of the misunderstanding of Wynwood as a neighborhood to say that the art has to be big and gigantic for it to have value and significance, whereas the small ones that you walk by are actually more valuable to pedestrians than when you're craning your neck up to see some gigantic wall If the developments were to have these sort of smaller moments on a street level, they're easier to maintain. They're easier to change. They won't disappear when the new construction comes next door. But developers and maybe all of us have to understand Wynwood a little bit different. and understand that these giant wow moments that developers like that they can control and corporatize with corporate artists are very different from the small local organic moments that I think actually resonate more with pedestrians.

Thank you.

It's almost like thinking of the district sort of as like an outdoor museum and like what would you need to you know curate maintain, vet what goes on the walls, how often it changes out, what are the right proportions. There's so many different scales, and then with new things coming in, and like you're saying, some of those murals are then obliterated, like somebody who's thinking ahead of time what could potentially happen, so that there's always that, you know, that it's shifting, it's dynamic. It's all about art. I mean, I don't even know if you've ever asked the art community what they thought about what would be a good art plan for the art district. I mean, they were the ones who originally created it and then were driven out of it, and then it's all been replaced by what the developers or the owners think is art. I mean, I think it does still have that type of coolness, but I think it's really disappearing. I mean, I think it's, you know, how do you set it up as if it were museum-like. It's a combination of what you're saying. People pay into a fund. There's dedicated space. I mean, somebody's really highly qualified for this curatorial or museum director role. And it involves everything from, you know, what rights are you getting from the artists, that the artists are getting paid fairly, that the landlords or the owners are paying the right percentage and not just exploiting, you know, creativity. And then it really maintains that creative spirit. And that you're planning to understand the intellectual property, I mean, what you can paint over and what you can't. Because sometimes there are murals that an artist disappears and they, you know, you don't know who really has the right or they don't leave the plan of what happens after that. So I like, I mean, I like the idea where you were going. I don't know how it would really work exactly.

But I think it also, that could also tie into...

the landscape area. It's sort of like curating these spaces, places, verticals, horizontals, but really for how you integrate art into the overall experience of the neighborhood that is consistent with the neighborhood's identity of itself.

Right. And we talked a lot about organic moments and how it's dynamic and how things change and it's more authentic. So it's interesting to compare Wynwood to the neighbor, which is the design district, which is like a sister, but also totally opposite in many ways, right? It's highly curated. It's totally new. It's like too much. And it's very much about these crafted, refined moments. It's still design, right? And it's art in a different kind of expression, whereas Wynwood is still, is meant to be kind of more raw. It's not permanent. You know, there shouldn't be a kind of permanent feeling to it. So how do we, this is also part of our challenge and part of the committee's challenge as we approve things, how do we guide the development of the neighborhood so that it maintains that feeling of this isn't gonna be here forever, right? It's a rotating gallery. This is an artist's playground, right? There's fewer boundaries. It's not so rigid in terms of the presentation of it and can feel more eclectic in the expression. So that's definitely a challenge of It can get tricky when you give too many examples. It can stifle creativity, right? So how do we provide enough direction so that the right kind of outcome happens without stifling the creativity at the same time?

I think it's also, it's interesting that somebody mentioned that art is, I think as you mentioned, art is the anchor of Wynwood, and that was a really great statement. And as we're talking, art progresses, and I know we're focusing on murals, but how do we think about what the art could be in the next 10 years? I mean, is it a sculpture? Is it digital media? Because I know the back when there was graffiti, but how does this beautiful art and the concept of art and the anchor, how does that evolve? How does that child grow up? How does it have a personality in the next? Is it going to be murals? Is it going to be the windward fun with sculptures? How is that defined? I think it's interesting to look at that.

To tag on to your comments, I I don't know if I dreamt this or it was a conversation in our office, but when people go to Coral Gables, you know if you're in Coral Gables or not because they have the signs on the bottom and by no means do I think Windwich have street signs on the ground, but are we able to differentiate our street signs, the street signs somehow in an artful way so that you know you're in Wynwood. Are you able to continue doing more sidewalk treatments? How can you, besides using facades on the building, can we add art to the district? You know, I think street signs, sidewalks, like you're not really allowed to, but we've had tenants that have painted their sidewalks and it definitely makes their space feel different? Or, you know, obviously, it could get a little out of control, but it's also organic. How can you know, you have this tough battle with both retail uses office uses and residential uses where people need windows? whether it's on the ground floor or whether it's to bring light into an office building or into an apartment. And so we're losing walls. And so how can we find other places to add art? And art doesn't always have to be paint. It can be tile. It can be sculptures. It could be different things. But I think, unfortunately, we don't have much in terms of park space in Wynwood. I know Recently, there's been one park, one lot that's been purchased that will be turned into a park. But how can we add art elements to any city-owned real estate?

So a couple more thoughts. Having sitting on the board, and again, coming from an architecture and landscape architecture training, I could now say that when we're sitting up there and these new larger developments were coming in, we talked endlessly about what is art, what could art on the building be, so on and so forth. I think we like to think that us as creative architects, so on and so forth, that we could always come up with something better. I don't know, but what I would say now, having gone through that experience and being here is really the art in Wynwood should be street art. It shouldn't like, because if not, it's just way too open in general to have this discussion as to what is art and what is art on a building should just be, Wynwood should be about mural art and street art. And forget about getting into, well, if we do this facade treatment that is intricate and it does this and that, is that considered art? I think if you want to be in Wynwood, you're coming here to do mural art. If you want to do that, you could go to the design district. To your point, right, like you want to be in this neighborhood, this is the character of the neighborhood. That's number one. Number two, hearing these conversations, like when you're in Wynwood, especially tours, You see them going on that snail golf cart, getting on and off. But what are they doing? They're looking at the murals at the street, getting down, taking pictures next to them. And it just made me realize that there's something beautiful about that, that, you know, like in a museum setting, typically, like someone is not allowed to get too close to the art. here people are allowed to get down, touch the wall, be in front of the wall, take a picture in front of the wall. And then to your point about like, right, like there's also now we're getting these large murals that are up there. Yeah, you know, I think there's a place for some of it, but there needs to be more emphasis on the street level where people actually connect to the art directly and people walk and get down. If it's up there and they're having tours on a golf cart, people are not gonna really get down. They're gonna point to it. Oh, look at that mural. Okay, keep going. So then it begins to create a disconnect there in terms of the way the people interact with the art. And then going back to the thing about rotating art, I don't know if it could be written into code. They have to change the art every X number of years. Simple as that. And even if you have a blank wall because there's going to be a building going up in the future, who really has control of what's going to happen in the future? So if there's a wall, it needs to have art. Regardless. And then, sorry, I'm jumping back and forth. My last comment would be in regards to regulation and landscape. We've implemented some of the streetscape. We've put in trees for some of these large developments. They put them in, and I've seen so many trees disappear. They're not taken care of. They're falling down, and they're not being replaced. So I think there needs to be some way to kind of regulate that too because that is a big component of what's going to make the neighborhood walkable and comfortable. So it's not okay for a developer to come in, meet the initial requirement, and walk away and forget about the street trees. That's all for me.

And in the interest of time, we don't want to keep you here all day. We did have another section about which topics and ideas are most impactful, but I do think that it really came out in our discussion. We talked a lot about the kind of street level experience and pedestrian comfort and walkability and how they're engaging with their surroundings and a lot about defining art and providing the right guidance for that. So I think those are definitely the priorities that we'll be focusing on. And we'd really like to kind of close with a bit of an aspirational prompt of think about 10 years in the future, you know, there's an article about the evolution of Wynwood. What is the headline, you know? So if each person could kind of, or whoever wants to jump in and share a thought, a kind of aspirational idea of what is the future that we would hope to see?

What you hope it will be or what we fear it might be?

Hopefully what you would like it to be.

It's a super cliche term, but I think it needs to really fit the work, live, and play. I think that we need to... to be a successful neighborhood, yes, we need to bring in local and tourists from afar, but I think to be a true neighborhood, you need a employment population and you need a residential population. And we need to figure out how all three of those groups can enjoy the neighborhood in their own way, but at the same time.

I think some headline like, you know, Wynwood is recognized as a living art museum.

That would be nice. Just even maintaining its identity now, or really living up to its identity. Living up to and maintaining an identity as an arts district. Whatever that is, whether it's a street art, which is what people really... mostly associated with, but just... And that's not just thinking about the exterior, but then really the interior. What's the content? Because otherwise it's just a facade. And then how do you really maintain it as a creative community by the types of businesses it attracts, not only what they put on the walls?

It would be something like the Wynwood Walls reopens after being closed for 10 years or something.

How about the artists repopulate Wynwood Art District? I'm just being facetious.

I like that, too. I mean, one of the things that that, you know, I speak to a lot of artists and barely any of them live in Wynwood. And how can you design an art neighborhood or a street art neighborhood where no artists live? It gets preposterous to have these developments go up and there's no consideration for artists' housing. I know that the Bakehouse is doing something, but it's preposterous that every building doesn't have something like that. There's no art studios. There's no art living. There's no art fun. There's no art anything. So it's kind of crazy.

That's why I refer to the content as much as the facade. And, you know, one, what defined it was really a rogue group of artists, and art spaces and art makers and creators and art sellers just completely being given free rent until that was monetized. So one would be, how great would it be? How could you repopulate? How could you reintegrate it? I think it's more than just a design code. I think it's more of a design code in tandem with the NRD1 zoning code. So as there are more developments, how do you really increase the footprint of art making and creativity rather than reduce it? So I think that maybe they both should be looked together, because it really isn't what it was in the beginning. I mean, it's still really interesting. I think it's an interesting place for sure, but it's definitely not what it was in the 90s. And there's definitely very, probably very few artists living and or working there, unless they're working in restaurants or retail. Right.

Something like Wynwood introduces affordable housing to artists. You know, just there's projects like that that exist in cities like Chicago or New York, other parts of the world, where it doesn't exist in Wynwood yet.

And even a more aspirant future could be. And I'll stop after this. would be that the recognition, the role that arts plays, and this is part of my advocacy requirement for the work that I do for artists, but it's that artists here have been given the same respect as any other labor and monetized for their labor to the point that they can afford, that artists return to Wynwood not just because there's affordable housing, but because they're able to sustain themselves in this city.

Well, and if you think about it, the value of this neighborhood as a brand is the art. That is what has driven all the real estate prices up and has allowed it to become a place where people want to come.

So maybe there's a way to figure out what the value of Wynwood was when the garment industry moved away. and what was the real estate value then, and what is the real estate value today, and how some incremental part of it could be put into a fund that really integrates artists and artists back into a neighborhood whose value was created by artists and art.

I mean, that's truly what keeps artists away, all right? Pardon me? What keeps artists away from Wynwood, one of the reasons is that it's unaffordable.

Yeah.

It's just, It's not possible to live there. The spaces aren't there. They can't and don't want to pay, you know, $2,000 for a studio. It just doesn't make any sense. But there's other neighborhoods that have led my example, like, you know, Dumbo in Brooklyn, where Two Trees has this sort of program for artists and nonprofits so they can be or remain in Dumbo. Yeah.

And also being, you know, working in the NRD too, I mean, I think there's a great opportunity for the two NRDs, you know, to sort of work together because it's sort of the same challenge that the NRD too has is how do you really create, maintain that authenticity of all, you know, the production. I mean, really it was light industrial production and now it's creative production and you know, how do the two NRD2s being really quite different in scale and zoning and uses and stuff like that, how do they maintain that creativity? Because, I mean, as Bakehouse moves forward, hopefully we'll be successful and have a large art community, but also how, I mean, that doesn't mean everybody has to do the same thing, but I think that connectivity of, you know, that whole...

notion of creativity driving a neighborhood and may be expressed in different ways great so i'm an architect so i look at it from the built environment and the actual fabric of winwood and i think one thing to prioritize is is i mean is the adaptive reuse buildings i mean it's very challenging when because of the land values that are I work with developers, so I'm for development, but just to keep the heritage and to keep the fabric of the city, those adaptive reuse buildings is very important. I've worked in a couple of these buildings, and to the lady's point about the stargates, it's so difficult to get a permit for these buildings. So I think prioritizing these adaptive reuse buildings, looking into the future, for the fabric of Wynwood would be great. Great. Thank you.

Okay.

I will just add I hope for within the next 10 years we're able to preserve the art and the scale of Wynwood because I think those two are like the main ingredients of the neighborhood and if we remove the art or we remove the scale then what will make us different from other neighborhoods in Miami like Edgewater, Brickell, Design District so I think and that adaptive reuse comments in play as well you know like those are that the scale of those will continue to make what it is right now. So a lot of what you're saying is things that I've been thinking about, so I think I'm really grateful for your time today and everything you've put on the table.

And I don't know, but I think the city, maybe you all know better, is I think the city is about to embark on like a master plan for art in public places.

Yeah, but it's for the city of Miami. It's not only for Wynwood, it's for everyone.

No, what I'm just saying is that, you know, Wynwood, getting Wynwood to participate and people there and who really care about it, because there'll be a number of public meetings where people really get to express, you know, why not having one unique, I mean, Miami has multiple identities. It's a city of multiple cities. So I think just as part of that overall thing that's coming down the line, we should all be cognizant of that and how does that, another overlay that would either restrain or could really open up creative opportunities. So how do each, you know, making sure that each of the neighborhoods really get to participate in artists or creative people within those neighborhoods who care about it so it doesn't have like one solution, you know, for a city.

I like what you're saying. You know, something that just comes to mind is if you have a neighborhood that's an art neighborhood How do you attract more art places to come into the neighborhood when the Guggenheim, as an example, is deciding where they're gonna move in the world to open up their next museum? If they were to come to Miami, shouldn't they be in Wynwood? Who's trying to attract art into Wynwood beyond what we're talking about in just murals right i want it to be a street art neighborhood because i think that that'll be the way for us to have the strongest identity in the united states as a neighborhood and stand out amongst any other neighborhood in the states and even in the hemisphere which will be great but imagine if on top of that you can layer in art institutions coming in and and being in winwood

I think I agree with you. And I do think that cultural and museums are, in large part, some of the best ways to elevate your art. And unfortunately, it's often development that brings that into an area. I think what will be the challenge for the Gensler team is to, I mean, we still have a lot of space in Wynwood. I think that there is a lot of forthcoming development, what boundaries can be placed to try to encourage or incentivize whether it's some form of cultural or other aspect of their development at the streetscape whether it's to reduce the amount of glazing that's encouraged where you have brickle where everything is glass to reducing the amount of glazing even though that's somewhat contraindicative for retail or mixed-use components right But it's definitely a challenge. But I agree with you. Bringing another namesake entity to Wynwood, unfortunately, it would be through somebody else.

Or even keeping the ones that are there. The Wynwood walls is not forever. The Museum of Graffiti is not forever. We're considering leaving the neighborhood.

We are?

We are. And so how do you keep the ones that are there, there? If you can't, you know, which is critical.

Which is why it's changed so much, because they couldn't keep what was there, there. So I think intentionally now, being aware of what could be lost. And what do you do intentionally to keep things there and to repopulate? And I mean, it could be just, like you said, if developers were incentivized to you know, host artist residency, the best street artists around the world who come and live and work in Wynwood. I mean, there's probably a lot of things that could be done through other organizations, but I think it's really, think of things that can be both content and exterior.

Well, it could also be a program thing, as you were talking about. You know, if, you know, developers are, you know, like, they're... By code, they have to build like 10 or 15% affordable housing or workforce housing. But what about if there's a program strategy where you build a new building and that 10% is for galleries instead of workforce housing? You have to have a gallery and you insert that program into the building. That could be interesting that, okay, we're not going to have... five units of workforce housing, we're going to have two galleries. And as a bonus density, you get ten more units.

Right, or cultural institutions.

So thank you so much for allowing us to take up an hour and a half of your time. This was really, really helpful. And within the next five to six months, we're going to be having a lot of these meetings with different stakeholders. And Hopefully soon we will be having a design guidelines that we can actually present and everyone can take a look at. And it's really a way of being able to, in a way, advertise what Wynwood is all about, not just internally, but to developers and the people who want to move into the neighborhood. And we're very excited. And thank you for your time. Thank you.

Thank you. Nicely done. Thank you.

Thank you.

Can we get a motion to adjourn, please?

Motion to adjourn.

Thank you.

And part of the compliance is maintaining their swale, which would be the overgrowth along the right of way. It would be clearing up the lot as well as registering it with the city of Miami because it is now vacant and is no longer a structure on here and it's not being occupied. A lot like this is a hazard to our neighborhood. It attracts illegal dumping, it attracts trash, stray animals, and it devalues the property values of the houses around us. As a reminder, if you so happen to own a vacant lot, it is to be registered with the city of Miami. By doing so, you can go on to our website under co-compliance. It will provide you all the steps that are needed to take.