The Developer Who’s About To Transform Lincoln Road
Despite the defeat yesterday of the proposed 800-room Miami Beach Convention Center hotel (it got 54% yes but needed 60%), other initiatives may create new excitement in the area. Get ready for a juiced up "Lincoln Lane" nearby—and an enlarged Lincoln Road "District” eventually up to 17th Street.
That’s the vision of Terranova founder Stephen Bittel, well underway with two buildings on a little parallel street between Lincoln Road and 17th and bordered by Meridian and Pennsylvania. Above we snapped 42k SF going up at 723 N Lincoln Lane, where discount department store Marshalls will take two-thirds of the space.
Backing up with our camera, you can see it makes for an entire new block…
…which you can also approach on the Macy’s side as seen from 17th Street (construction crane in the distance on the right).
A few feet across Marshalls on Meridian, women’s store Anthropologie will begin to come out of the ground in the next 30 days, taking one-third of a new 30k SF building behind Dylan’s Candy Bar; it will be labeled 801 Lincoln Rd. Regus and Clark are also taking space on the street at 1688 Meridian.
The idea is not only to take spillover from Lincoln Road…
…but to capitalize on the major renovation going on at the Convention Center a block to the north, where Clark Construction started on a $500M phased contract right after Art Basel. Stephen believes all this will inspire redevelopment on multiple side streets nearby.
This rendering of Portman Holding's proposed $400M, 800-room Convention Center hotel will no longer help the cause. The problem was not cost—they were going to finance it privately—but concerns about parking and congestion. This despite the fact that Miami Beach Mayor Levine, a strong proponent, cited studies showing an on-site hotel would actually reduce traffic.
At the same time, Terranova continues to own and lease seven properties on Lincoln Road, like this one.
And there’s a whole other Terranova story in Coral Gables, where they own nine properties on Miracle Mile, which is being upgraded with broader pedestrian walks, more plantings and other Lincoln Road-esque features.
Meanwhile, Steve doesn’t just have a front row seat for Miami real estate, but on the national political scene. As one of two co-chairs of the DNC, right under chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, he’s attended five of the eight Democratic debates so far this season (in Las Vegas, Manchester, Milwaukee, Charleston, and of course last week in Miami), although, to be precise, he’s usually placed in rows 1 to 4 with “the finance people.” (We think that’s code for top of the hierarchy.)
Sometimes he doesn’t even have to travel for the action—here’s the President visiting Stephen's home in Coconut Grove for a DNC fundraiser. Veep Biden has also visited and seems to have more time on his hands; he's stayed four hours to Obama's three. Other factoids you might not know about Stephen:
Favorite restaurants: MC Kitchen, The Federal, "I am a huge wine and food aficionado."
Favorite music: Springsteen, Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, "I go to concerts constantly."
Favorite movie: The Godfather
Favorite vacation destination: "What's a vacation?"
