In our final series of Miami resolutions, we checked in with local leaders from urban planning to real estate development to better understand our cities and neighborhoods. We asked them how they thought Miami-Dade County’s neighborhoods would change throughout 2016, and how they hope to be a part of it. Here are some of their thoughts.
As president and CEO, Michael A. Comras founded The Comras Company of Florida, Inc., a full service real estate brokerage company, in 1992.
“Miami has some of the best demographics in the state of Florida. If you consider Coral Gables, Key Biscayne, Coconut Grove, and South Miami, you have some of the best demographics. Coconut Grove is a village that’s been around for many years and is an organic, walkable environment.
As Miami becomes more and more dense, people don’t want to travel as far because it gets more difficult. In this way, gentrification causes localization, so we need to move towards localizing businesses in prime areas. If we hit it right, we can bring in the right types of boutiques, restaurants, and service providers to create local villages. This also promotes tourism, because when people travel, they often want to go where locals hang out. What we’re seeing is a change in merchandising. In Coconut Grove, we have hotels, creative offices, and markets, and these will continue to attract more people.
In this next year, I think you’ll see some slowing of development. There’s going to be less cranes, a pull back of the residential market, and you’ll start to see a little more caution coming to the market. Some challenges will be finding tenants to maintain occupancy costs. With online retailing coming on quite strong, it poses a challenge to developers to elevate projects to drag people out of their houses. With that said, I see Miami continuing to thrive, but there’s going to be some slowdown in terms of new residential development. And developers will start to have a more cautious view of the world.”
Roshan Nebhrajani, The New Tropic
Read more here: thenewtropic.com/
