Everyone has a fascination with Miami’s gentrification as shown in this Toronto Star story about the turnaround of the Wynwood neighborhood:
Wynwood Walls is the brainchild of Tony Goldman, the veteran New York developer with an instinct for reviving derelict areas honed over some 40 years. The raggedy old industrial sector near Miami’s centre is now home to some 80 galleries. Many were carved out of the innards of squat warehouses once used for storing goods unloaded from freighters docking at the old port of Miami. […] Goldman, a driving force in SoHo’s revival in New York as well as an architectural turnaround in central Philadelphia, should be called a stealth developer. For all his impact in Wynwood, his investment is relatively modest, with some $35 million (U.S) spent on 24 buildings since 2004. You’d never think of his profile as being highly defined; “weathered” would be more like it.
“I start looking for the root system of the community I’m in,” Goldman tells me. “I search for the soul of the neighbourhood, the scale of the buildings, the grid system and its atmosphere. I then wrap it and enhance it. I don’t even like the term ‘developer.’ ”
The Miami Art Scene Is Heating Up (The Star.com)