One of few remaining green spaces in Brickell could disappear. What’s planned?

Allen Morris Brickell Park is a leafy oasis on a fraction of a city block. The quarter-acre park is one of few green spaces remaining in the bustling heart of Miami’s financial district.

Over the years, the park’s canopy of palm, banyan and black olive trees has remained, a surviving slice of nature in the middle of a concrete jungle, even as more high-rises pop up all around.

But since early July, the park at the intersection of Southeast 10th Street and Brickell Plaza has been fenced off, as the developer that owns the green space prepares to redevelop the site.

The immediate plan is a high-end restaurant headed by a Michelin-starred chef. But the Allen Morris Company, a real estate developer based in Coral Gables and Atlanta, isn’t ruling out an eventual high-rise on the site, said Javier Fernández, an attorney for the developer. The land is zoned to allow high-density residential development.

And a skyscraper would certainly fit in with the surroundings. The park has been hemmed in by high-rises including the citizenM hotel on the same block and the Brickell Flatiron condo building directly across Southeast 10th Street.

But that’s exactly why some neighbors have pushed back against the Allen Morris Company’s plans. To community advocate Elena Kasparis, losing the park would mean losing what little public green space her neighborhood has left. Kasparis has been a vocal advocate for saving the park, and an online petition she started has received nearly 2,000 signatures.

The Sierra Club, an environmental nonprofit, is planning to appeal the permits the city issued to remove five trees from the site, including a black olive with a trunk that’s nearly six feet in circumference.

Loss of trees and public green space

Casey Piket, a Miami history blogger and longtime Brickell resident, has been advocating to save the neighborhood’s shrinking tree canopy and park space for years. He’s particularly worried about retaining trees and grass to help mitigate flooding in the flood-prone neighborhood.

“I look at what we have for green space in Brickell, and it just continues to narrow,” Piket said.

Brickell’s other green spaces include Mary Brickell Park, a two-acre bayfront park, and Simpson Park Hammock, an eight-acre preserve south of Brickell’s denser urban core.

South Side Park, located on Brickell’s west side, was slated for development as a luxury Mercedes Benz-branded condo tower. A sales center for the tower has been built at the park, but as the project has stalled and been threatened with foreclosure, the future of the site is unclear.

Piket is also worried about the potential loss of greenery at the Jackson Cottage site in Brickell. The historic cottage was recently purchased by billionaire hedge fund CEO Ken Griffin with plans to move it to Coconut Grove.

Piket was instrumental in relocating a tree to Allen Morris Brickell Park from the neighboring lot that became the citizenM hotel. The black olive he helped transplant is now one of the trees at the park slated for removal.

Renderings of the restaurant the Allen Morris Company has planned show a wooden building with patios surrounded by greenery. The structure is built around one of the lot’s larger trees: a mature banyan. Fernández, who is also the mayor of South Miami, said the developer will plant six new trees on the site to make up for the loss of the trees being removed.

But Piket said that doesn’t do enough to mitigate the loss. Replacing mature trees with younger trees means it will take years before the canopy recovers. And Piket said he thinks it won’t be long before the developer looks to remove more trees from the site to build a high-rise.

“It’s going to be redeveloped,” Piket said. “So what happens to those trees they plant? What happens to the other ones that are sitting on that lot?”

City Commissioner Rolando Escalona, who represents the part of Brickell where Allen Morris Brickell Park is located, told the Miami Herald he is concerned about the loss of trees in his district and across Miami. He said he doesn’t want a high-rise on the site.

“I don’t support it,” he said in a phone interview. “I don’t believe we need more buildings in that area.”

Alexander Ringleb said he and his wife used to stop in the park for shade when they would walk their dog in the area. The couple lived in Brickell for years before relocating to escape the neighborhood’s noise and congestion. He said Brickell has become a “concrete jungle.”

“In a city as hot as Miami, you want to have a green space where you could sit down and where you could have some shade in nature,” said Ringleb, the owner of the restaurant Burgermeister, which has locations in Brickell and Miami Beach.

Although some neighbors, like Ringleb and Kasparis, have shared their disappointment over the loss of the public green space, others have celebrated the prospect of something new coming to the site. Residents of the Brickell Flatiron, a condo building across from the park, had long complained about trash and homelessness in the park.

Piket agreed that the city was not the best steward of the park, often allowing trash cans to overflow.

Another project headed by the same developer in Coconut Grove, the proposed luxury mixed-use development Ziggurat, has also raised concerns among neighbors who are concerned about Miami’s shrinking tree canopy. The Allen Morris Company has filed permits to remove more than 40 trees from the site at 3103 Grand Ave. Again, Fernández said the developer will replant trees to make up for the trees it’s planning to remove.

Kat Morris, a longtime Coconut Grove resident, said she feels like developers are “strip-mining our city” by removing trees for development. Morris, who has been advocating to preserve Coconut Grove’s tree canopy for years, is not related to the Morris family of the Allen Morris Company.

Legal dispute and Allen Morris park repossession

For decades, the park was city-owned, after real estate developer L. Allen Morris donated the land to the city. L. Allen Morris, the founder of the Allen Morris Company, died in 1998, and his son, W. Allen Morris, is now the CEO and chairman of the development firm.

But starting in 2014, the park was at the center of a protracted legal dispute between the city and the developer. When L. Allen Morris donated the land, the city signed what’s known as a “reverter clause,” which stipulated that if the site were used for commercial purposes, the Allen Morris Company could take the land back.

And that’s what happened. The company sued Miami after the city allowed the now-closed Perricone’s restaurant, which was next to the park, to use the park for seating. After a legal showdown that lasted about a decade, the developer won the suit and took back the land.

Ringleb said he blames the city for losing the park.

“It’s a shame that the city didn’t respect what was something so simple: Keep it as a park,” he said.

Uncertain future for Brickell park

Fernández told the Herald that he doesn’t know what the long-term future of the site holds, beyond the immediate plans for the restaurant, which will be called Gavina. Stefano Secchi, the Michelin-starred chef behind the New York restaurant Rezdôra, will head up the high-end restaurant.

During an online community meeting last week, Fernández said he “wouldn’t foreclose” the possibility of a park on the site in the future. But what some residents think is more likely that the restaurant will become a sales center for a future residential tower on the site.

In email exchanges with the developer, Kasparis received a rendering of the proposed restaurant. But she noticed something unexpected: small type in the bottom left corner that read “BRICKELL PARK – FUTURE SUPERTALL SALES CENTER.” Renderings of a supertall skyscraper proposed by the Allen Morris Company also circulated online last year. A supertall is a skyscraper 984 feet or taller.

Fernández said there had been discussion of a supertall at one point, but it had faced “challenges,” and “for now, it’s Gavina.” He said the restaurant becoming a sales center for a future project is a possibility.

In Coconut Grove, the sales gallery for Ziggurat is also a restaurant, which has fueled speculation that this restaurant could be laying the groundwork for a sales center. A sales center is a marketing tool for condo projects, where potential buyers can meet with the sales team and learn more about a building’s units and amenities.

Canopy concerns in Brickell and Coconut Grove

The Allen Morris Brickell Park site and the land that will become the luxury mixed-used Ziggurat project have become symbols of a shrinking tree canopy to advocates in both neighborhoods. Aside from the natural beauty a lush tree canopy provides, trees are also important for improving air quality, providing shade and mitigating flood risk.

Ziggurat will have office and retail space in addition to 19 ultra-luxury condos. Online marketing materials describe the residences as “a refined retreat rooted in nature” and highlight the development’s lush greenery. “Nature in every step,” reads one heading on Ziggurat’s website.

Miami City Commissioner Damian Pardo represents Coconut Grove, where the Ziggurat project is planned. A spokesperson for Pardo did not respond to the Herald’s emails asking about the proposed tree removals.

At a meeting last month, local attorney David Winker sought to appeal the tree removal permits on behalf of a Coconut Grove resident who lives near the site. But because the appeal was filed by a nonprofit Winker had recently formed, which did not include the resident as a member, the preservation board determined Winker did not have standing to make the appeal.

Winker did not respond to the Herald’s questions about whether he is planning to appeal again at a future meeting. Fernández said the project will not go ahead until the tree removal permits are approved.