MIAMI (AP) - Is there too much noise in Wynwood? Depends on who’s listening.
One bar owner says the music at his joint is so low, he sings louder when he’s in the shower. One resident says the noise outside her apartment is so loud, it drowns out her TV set.
And an administrator claims there is so much ruckus outside her law firm during working hours, people on the other end of phone calls often ask her what all the racket in the background is.
Noise was one of the most hotly debated topics during a public meeting hosted by the Wynwood Business Improvement District (BID) on Tuesday (March 3) morning. The meeting was one of two held on the same day to air competing viewpoints in the escalating battle over Wynwood’s future.
Billionaire real estate developer Moishe Mana harshly criticized the BID and said it should be dismantled following the abrupt Feb. 15 closure of the Wynwood Marketplace, an open-air pop-up event space held on one of his parcels of land.
Mana turned up the volume on his vision for Wynwood at a Tuesday afternoon community gathering held - appropriately for his argument - outdoors, in a lot adjacent to his temporarily idle Marketplace. About 200 people attended, many showing their support for Mana’s #Save Wynwood campaign by wearing free black T-shirts emblazoned with the motto, “Don’t Drain the Color.”
“Miami is not an indoor place. Miami is an outdoor place,” Mana said, alluding to the Marketplace site of concerts and festivals and the numerous bars and clubs that play music in their courtyards. “It is an unrealistic fairy tale to move all the music and noise inside a box. Maybe it is up to the developers to build better buildings with better windows.”
Mana, the largest private landowner in Wynwood and downtown Miami, is one of the authors of the #SaveWynwood petition, which has drawn more than 35,000 signatures and claims the BID wants to shut down nightlife at 11 p.m. to appease luxury developers and new apartment tenants.
SMEAR CAMPAIGN
The BID countered that Mana has launched a “misinformation smear campaign” when all the BID asks is that Mana and other Wynwood venues follow Miami’s noise law, which states that noise audible beyond 100 feet must move indoors after 11 p.m. until 3 a.m.
Mana and Swarm, which produces events held on his property, co-sponsored the petition. The petition was posted online soon after Miami police and code enforcement officers closed the Marketplace on a busy Saturday night for failure to comply with a temporary use permit. Mana, who owns 45 acres of contiguous land in the neighborhood, fired off angry texts to BID members and police.
From the point of view of Mana, whose art-centric hippification plans helped reinvent New York’s Meatpacking District and Jersey City, N.J., too many residents moving into Wynwood’s core will destroy its free-wheeling spirit.
“I’ve been putting a lot of investment into Wynwood for over 10 years - and this is not my first neighborhood,” he said. “Making it residential is declaring war on the golden goose of tourism. Let’s not pluck the feathers off in a march of slow death that will cannibalize the neighborhood.”
A few blocks away on Tuesday morning, more than 250 Wynwood residents, business owners and developers squeezed into The Light Box at Goldman Warehouse for an emergency BID hearing to talk about the conflict with Mana and Swarm as well as the random code enforcement and noise citations that many establishments have received in the past two weeks.
“We are at an inflection point with Wynwood,” said Mayor Francis Suarez at the start of the meeting, which was also attended by City Manager Art Noriega and commissioners Keon Hardemon and Ken Russell.
Nearly two hours of impassioned public comments followed. Adam Gersten, owner of the Wynwood staple Gramps, argued people come to Wynwood to be outside, and almost every establishment has an outdoor terrace.
“We’re treating bars, cafes and restaurants making noise at night like it was an alien thing,” he said. “But when you look at great cities around the world - including, I hate to say it, Fort Lauderdale - they have all figured out how to have after-hours entertainment without violating code.”
ACT OF MISDIRECTION
Developer David Lombardi, principal/broker of Lombardi Properties, said everyone has been “waxing poetically” about what’s really behind the #SaveWynwood petition.
“Shame on Moishe and Swarm for the way they’ve behaved,” he said. “Mana and Swarm got caught misbehaving, and now they’ve created a whirling dervish of misdirection.”
Only one person implored the BID to ask city officials to reinstate the Marketplace quickly so Swarm could resume operations.
“I am a vendor at Swarm,” said Jeff Mitchell, who pays $4,000 in rent for an apartment in Wynwood 25 on Northwest 25th Street for his wife and three kids. “As a vendor, you shut down my income when you shut them down. There are going to be arguments for and against everything. But you have to try to get Swarm back up, maybe on a limited basis.”
Leslie Sharpe, an attorney for Mana Wynwood who sits on the BID, said that despite the recent friction between her client and the BID, business owners and developers have a similar big-picture perspective on Wynwood’s future.
“This is not a fight between Mana and the city of Miami or Mana and the other business owners in the neighborhood,” she said near the end of the three-hour meeting. “The issues plaguing Wynwood are not limited to Mana and Swarm. Everyone is saying that we don’t agree with (city of Miami) charter codes 36-4 and 36-5 that don’t allow loud music to be played.
“Like it or not, Mana has been a big part of making Wynwood the vibrant area it is today,” she said. “The business owners are telling us they want to change the ordinances. Let’s change them.”
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT
The BID will discuss the noise ordinance codes and temporary-use permits during its next regular meeting on March 11.
“I hope Mr. Mana will join us at future BID meetings to air his concerns,” said Albert Garcia, BID chair and chief of Wynwood Ventures.
Miami’s noise law, which uses such terms as “phonograph” and “jukeboxes” is outdated and needs to be rewritten to apply to Wynwood, which should be designated as an Arts and Entertainment District with zoning “specifically crafted with the area’s needs in mind,” according to a #SaveWynwood statement of goals.
“Currently, the same laws that apply in a quiet, suburban neighborhood also apply to Wynwood. This is an oversight. The law needs to catch up to reality.”
Suarez agreed that it’s time to revisit some of the vague and subjective wording of the law.
“As the city’s first Miami-born mayor, I’ve seen a lot of neighborhoods rise and fall based on government regulation,” Suarez said. “We have to balance enforcement with common sense. Wynwood underwent a little schism five years ago, which manifested itself in two different visions. It has to stop being two separate neighborhoods and find a path of consensus. Negative publicity is not good and both sides see that.”
Suarez suggested developers be required to construct soundproof buildings and businesses employ sound mitigation measures -instead of having everyone blame the city’s code compliance officers for noise and permitting problems.
“We are criticized for being too heavy-handed or we’re too lax on enforcing the laws,” he said.
Swarm CEO Tony Albelo, who has taken heat from the BID for organizing events that are too loud, too large and too late, said he was happy to be part of proactive forums about Wynwood’s evolution. He said office tenants, residents and partygoers can coexist if they all accept where they are located.
“In the ads for Wynwood 25, the implication is ‘Welcome to the party,’” he said. “We haven’t been rogue cowboys. We’ve asked the city what to do. We’ve tried to be considerate, and we’ve limited the Marketplace to Thursday through Sunday, for example. Wynwood can be a place for fledgling businesses and established businesses.
“A rising tide raises all ships. When we invest hundreds of thousands of dollars to launch Wynwood Pride during a slow summer period, and hire international LGBTQ talent, we’re bringing lots of people to Wynwood who walk around and patronize lots of businesses. Would you rather have a vacant lot, or another restaurant selling $20 hamburgers?”
FUTURE PLANS
Mana said he still intends to build a trade and tech mini-city on the Marketplace land but in the meantime it should continue to be an affordable gathering place.
“The goal is to create a global trade hub, the Silicon Valley of Latin America, and if we can’t capitalize on it, we are stupid,” he said. “It is a complicated plan and Miami is the toughest place to build of any of the cities where I’ve built.
“But I’m not thinking of myself only. We need to protect the special Wynwood ecosystem. This war is a bump on the road. We’ll fix it.”
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