Swire Building New $6.5M Intersection For Brickell City Centre
Next to Brickell City Centre, Swire Properies is building a new traffic circle.
Swire essentially spent $4.865 million to purchase and demolish a building housing Florida’s Department of Juvenile Justice to make way for the new intersection, with $700,000 in funds coming from street impact fees.
Construction costs of $1.6 million are funded by other impact fees paid by Swire to build Brickell City Centre. Those funds were rebated, in a deal approved by city commissioners.
Any costs above the rebated impact fee amount of $1.6 million will be funded by Swire.
Previously: Swire Buying More Brickell Land To ‘Enhance Right Of Way’ Around City Centre
Swire Gets $1.6M From City To Build Brickell Intersection
I’m very happy this progress is happening — but the intersections through here are designed by FDOT for cars traveling 55 mph through rural parts of the state.
BCC should’ve pushed back and requested a more pedestrian friendly layout of the road. The extra wide 12 foot lanes only promote people speeding through this area.
Agreed. In fact, I think BCC should have requested that 7th and 8th Streets be each lose a lane of car traffic and added protected bike lanes with buffer.
it was a ugly building
BCC?
I think he/she is referring to that ugly DJJ building about to be torn down.
One of the few road works I’m very into. The tree is excellent, the extension of the bike lanes is great, and the ability to go (on my bike) straight to 8th to get to Brickell directly is amazing. Miami av bridge is less of a speeding free-for-all and more of a center-city street. Good work.
You actually risk your life riding a bike in bike lanes in Miami?
You’re one brave mofo!
Bike lanes aren’t that bad in Miami, the problem is they randomly end putting you in 40 MPH traffic.
What’s wrong with a little exercise?
Nothing…it’s just that I would rather go to a gym for my exercise…mofo’s in Miami will run your bike and your ass over in the street!
Haha, I actually don’t drive at all. I moved back home after being in NY for ten years thinking riding would be worse here but it turns out drivers are only nasty tp each other. I have been back in Miami over a year and have been honked at for no reason maybe twice. In NY theu are literally trying to murder you whereas here maybe there’s a respect for people getting exercise? All I know is in town, riding is fine for me but I’ve been cycling in urban settings for years now. The streets here are definitely not safe for beginners, and one of my main complaints outside of the idiotic lack of priority for mass transit is the complete absence of any even small complete bicycle network. As someone below mentioned, the lanes just abruptly stop and force you into car lanes. NE 2 Av should have a two-way, protected path from downtown to 215th st. And all the east-west roads. I almost got killed on Kendall Dr. last year ironically riding to a doctor’s office, because I was on the sidewalk and a truck was flying off the Palmetto and didn’t see me, and I was… Read more »
I’m with you! I have a car but hate sitting in traffic for 1-2-hrs everyday…So instead I began to commute to work and It was great while it lasted. I did it for about three months and during this time there were too many close calls. Drivers don’t realize that a 3,000 lb vehicle at
40 mph will instantly kill a cyclist..and when you see these drivers drive inches from you at 40 mph+ while looking down at their phones and never see you, It makes want to be in your car.
This is true and I’m ready to throw myself onto the sidewalk or whatever at a second’s notice. But yeah I don’t expect people who aren’t already fit to do what I do, which is why I’m a big advocate of a dense and PROTECTED bike lane network throughout the county (and region!). Otherwise, far more people percentagewise are killed in their cars than on bikes so I like my odds. There’s always stress involved especially when I ride to places I don’t often go, like the Grove or up Biscayne (horrible) but overall, and I am comparing this to NYC which has incredible bike facilities but an evil nasty driving culture, it’s been good for me. Again, I’m saying this as a very experienced and overall fit male rider. We need to make it safer for women and older people to ride without fear 🙂
Agreed as well. I have a commute that could be done by a leisurely 45 minute bike ride, but it’s just too unsafe. A bare-bones bike network as mentioned above would do wonders. I’m sure there are a large number of people who would like to ride to work but don’t want to die.
We’ll said! Ace.. and I agree. A traffic circle is great. I am no traffic planner but it just seems like it’s perfect for the location. Kudos to Swire for following through on the commitment to acquire, plan, schedule, and construct the traffic features / roadway.
Now will be able to make a U turn there.
This is Miami, now they’ll be able to make a legal U-turn there. 😉
Wish they could’ve come up with something more interesting there other than a tree. It’s a prominent enough location.
People are supposed to driving around it instead of gawking at something.
You mean driving into it.
Ha!…you’re right, they may just do that to!
You mean how they gawk at Columbus Circle or any other prominent roundabout in any other major city?
Columbus Circle has been around for a long, long time. This is Miami where most people who drive don’t give a sh*t about using turn signals.
Columbus circle is not going to last too long, they will change its name because it offends some people (;-)
IDK, it seems Antifa is barking up the wrong tree now that people of Italian descent are vowing to protect his namesake.
I’m of Sicilian and Neapolitan descent and idgaf about Columbus. He would barely have thought my people were human, let alone fellow countrymen. Italian-Americans are really stereotype dumb goombahs when it comes to their history, which is very rich but has as much to do with Columbus as it does with George Washington.
Well, Columbus was from north Italy, which is basically a separate country from the south. Still, it’s a slippery slope because every historical figure did some unethical stuff. Heck, Ghandi statues are proposed to be taken down because he said unflattering stuff about Africans, but liberals refuse to recognize it because he was also a person of color.
You comparing Columbus Circle to this intersection?
LOL
Fingers crossed, maybe there will be more landscaping once construction is done.
Maybe a giant statue of an undeserving Miami politician by taxpayer’s expense?
Or a huge dollar sign with little balconies as an homage to our architectural ethos?
I wonder what’s going to happen to the triangular block. It’s arguably historic, but not so much since Tobacco Road was demolished. Also, it’s somewhat out of place now, as well as the low-rises along First Street at the edge of BCC. A upscale condo towers, hotel, and/or Brickell City Center Phase 2/3 would be fantastic.
Seems like a very pedestrian unfriendly design.
I haven’t looked closely but from my balcony yeah I can see at the curve off the brudge there’s no place to cross. They should put a ped light there and a crosswalk to stop that speeding traffic.
SWIRE CRUSHES