Miami Lakes will be transformed in the year ahead. Ten construction projects -- to serve housing needs; education and culture; health care; recreation, dining and shopping -- will begin or are already happening. Road construction, for both connectivity and drainage, is ongoing. There will also be a significant town election in November that will bring mostly new council members to the dais.
Leaders shared what they are anticipating for 2024.
Stuart S. Wyllie is president and chief executive officer of The Graham Companies, the developer of the town and the largest property owner. Wyllie is bullish on Miami Lakes as a destination for business.
“The Graham Companies as well as the Graham family remain committed for the long term to making Miami Lakes a great place to live, work and raise a family,” Wyllie said. “William A Graham’s vision of creating a special community continues to be a work in progress that involves completing the development of the last remaining parcels of vacant land and the redevelopment of older properties. This ongoing reinvestment in the community is the key to attracting the residents and businesses that make Miami Lakes what it is today and will be for future generations."
“The things that I am looking forward to in 2024 are:
• “Completion of the South Pointe mixed-use development in the third quarter [of 2024], of 179 residential units and15,000 square feet of retail on Graham Dairy Lake.
• “Commencement of construction at the Residences & Shops on NINE at the Miami Lakes Golf Course of 278 residential units, a five-star banquet facility, enhanced driving range activity and entertainment building and 12,000 square feet of retail.
• “Improvement to the drainage and lighting on Main Street as the first phase of an overall redo of the street, to be completed in 2025.
• “Demolition of the Lake Katharine Shopping Center, to be replaced with a new 12,000 square foot retail and restaurant building,” Wyllie said.
Also going up in town:
• Baptist Health South Florida’s 19,800 square foot Emergency Center to stabilize heart and stroke patients, at Northwest 77th Court and Northwest 149th Street in Business Park West. Baptist anticipates a January 2025 opening.
• Miami-Dade County will begin an estimated $7 million interior and exterior renovation of the Miami Lakes Library in mid-2024. The modernization project includes a 5,000-square-foot addition, an improved façade, a new roof, and new furniture and fixtures.
• Miami Lakes AutoMall will build a new showroom and service center after demolition of two existing buildings. The company hopes to break ground this year.
• GT USA will build Palma del Lago, 37 single-family luxury homes along Northwest 162nd Street between Northwest 87th Avenue and Northwest 84th Avenue. Properties will be priced from $1.5 million.
Edward Pidermann, Miami Lakes town manager, said staff will focus on:
• “The Northwest 59th Avenue project. Whether there is a project manager or not, it’s still going to fall on our shoulders to make it happen. … We’re awaiting FAA approval of realignment of the bridge. Once we have that we can conclude negotiations with three property owners: Caterpillar, the school board and Miami-Dade Aviation for the property rights they will convey to us. I think the final court hearing for the eminent domain [purchase of] the warehouse will happen in February. We have to get it back before the judge to approve the settlement agreement. After that, I think it will start rolling really quick."
• Optimist Park. “We have about $1.5 million [available],” Pidermann said. “We’ll give two to four options [to the council] we can do, to improve park use and aesthetics and functionality. Ultimately the decision will be the council’s and I’m hoping we can have a workshop in the first quarter of ‘24. One thing they talked about is a bathroom facility that will service the fields that are farther away from the clubhouse.”
• Road construction. “We have seven active jobs for drainage. We have deadlines we have to meet, some of which will happen in 2024 as far as a certain percentage of bond money and American Rescue Plan money that has to be spent. We haven’t asked for extensions and are meeting deadlines on that and we’re going to continue that.”
• Traffic. “The lights are now synchronized. We have people on staff and on the police staff who work great with the county signal people,” he said. “The county is planning a new traffic signal for the three-way intersection at Northwest 154th Street and Northwest 79th Court, near the Park Centre Shops/Einstein’s Bagels. That will help the whole intersection. I’m hoping in ’24 it will be up and running.”
• Blasting and infrastructure. “We’re working with our state legislature to see if we can get appropriate dollars from the state budget and all of it will go toward infrastructure,” he said. “Rep. [Tom] Fabricio has another bill in the state legislature for blasting and he’s working very hard to get it workshopped or in committee. We’ll see.”
Clarisell De Cardenas, Miami Lakes communications and community affairs director, shared news:
• Redesigned website. “[The town is] launching a new website with interactive resident engagement features which include improved, easy navigation, a user-friendly layout and a sleek design that reflects the town’s brand,” De Cardenas said. “The goal for the launch is the first week of January.”
• Town-wide celebrations remain popular. “Independence Day (Fourth of July); Spring Fling (Easter Egg Hunt); Culinary Bike Tour; Halloween (Nightmare on Montrose) and the 45th Annual Veterans Day Parade, over time, these events have grown and become signature events for the community.”
Attorney Alex Penelas is a Miami Lakes resident, a two-term Miami-Dade County Mayor from 1996 – 2004; county commissioner from 1990 – 1996 and Hialeah city councilman, from 1987 – 1990.
The town may see five new, untested candidates elected to the Miami Lakes council on Nov. 5.
• Non-partisan races? “Among the Republicans, candidly it’s really a race about who is more conservative and more supportive of Trump,” Penelas said. “I hate to see it. It’s what happened in the Hialeah elections … I don’t care who is more for Trump or more Republican. I want to know who is going to be more focused on issues that concern Miami Lakes. These are reports I get from the field and candidates who talk to me about their agendas. And I always ask, ‘Are they going to support Trump?’ It’s a very polarizing issue.”
• Miami Lakes issues. “Blasting, security and flooding are issues that concern people,” Penelas said. “Security also encompasses issues of budgetary allocations. The council adopted a rollback rate this last budget season. It’s pretty clear why, we’re in an election season. It’s not that I want to pay more taxes and there’s consequences to passing a budget that is politically beneficial. But did it really address the needs of the town? A sub issue of security is policing and really has to do with budget issues. How are these candidates equipped to deal with that?”
• Blasting. “I’m hoping people will make decisions based on this blasting issue that is going round and round and round,” he said. “The only way to really solve this issue is wresting back control over this issue locally. The blasting industry has a lot of money.”
Fred Senra, president, Miami Lakes Chamber of Commerce. The chamber’s plans this year include:
• New events. “A charity golf tournament at Miami Lakes Golf Club to benefit causes to be announced,” Senra said. “We’re also considering a gala to benefit scholarships for local students and local charities in Miami Lakes and planning the annual Business Expo. The last expo was extremely successful.”
• Chamber elections. “Planned for the first quarter,” Senra said. “The chamber has come a long way in the last two years, ever since the pandemic was over. With the creation of the young professionals committee along with the board, we have been able to increase the number of members and we’re looking to increase it even more. We have continued the efforts of networking events around the town and are also a part of the ribbon cutting ceremonies for new businesses that are opening in Miami Lakes. Before, the chamber was not active in that. We have also been active with the Economic Development Committee in some of their events and with [Business Networking International]."
• Commerce is growing. “The business activity reflects the new dynamics we’re seeing in town right now, with all the new businesses and different trades opening up, owned by young families that are investing in town and we’re right there with them to help them succeed,” he said. “We’ll introduce them to the chamber membership who will patronize them and we’ll inform the membership of what the new companies are doing, to contribute to their success.”
• Miami Lakes Business Podcast. “We’ve done 15 episodes. The audience is growing and we’re going to try and grow it even more by advertising on social media,” he said.
Miami-Dade County Public Schools Superintendent of Schools Dr. Jose L. Dotres said in a recorded statement sent to The Miami Laker that while the district is “scoring extremely well, A-rated for four years in a row,” he has ambitious goals for students and teachers. Excerpts of his comments are below.
• To do list. “We’re in the top 10 districts in the State of Florida,” Dotres said. “There is still a lot to do.”
• Impact of the pandemic. “[It] set some students back nationally in mathematics and in the district and it will take a while to recover,” he said. “We no longer talk about remediation strategies with children and students but rather accelerating, because that is what we have to do.”
• New state standards. The biggest challenge is sustaining student performance and “really mastering the new standards of the state. They are more rigorous,” he said. “Both in reading and now mathematics needs more attention than maybe prior.”
• Mental health. Provide mental health support for students in their school and home environments. And, “we have to start focusing more on the family. … What other supports are there for the family so that they can be supported and help their child be successful when they come to school and even when they are at home?”
• Artificial intelligence. “AI is really important,” Dotres said. “One of the challenges is going to be, how do we embrace it? How do we use it for teachers to teach more efficiently and then how do we incorporate it, which we’re doing but how do we have a general understanding that these are tools that can be used and they can be used correctly?” He said the district must make sure it is not abusing AI and that it understands its power, “but also some of the limitations that we have to place around it.”
• Attracting new students. An ongoing goal is to become “the most innovative school district in the country,” he said. “That will entail developing programs that are “connected to industry and careers that will really land solid opportunities for students. And it’s a challenge because we have to make sure that we bring the right people together to think big, so that we can innovate and we can create as much choice as we possibly can. We want to live up to that logo, MDCPS is the best choice.”
Victor Benitez is vice president and general manager, Gus Machado Ford. The Hialeah dealership is an elite EV-certified business that makes charging stations available to anyone. The town has EVs in the Freebee fleet. Will everyone have one soon?
• Purchases will increase. “New vehicle sales in the U.S. will increase from 15.3 million to 15.6 million,” Benitez said. “Why? It is an election year … and all the politicians try to make things look good in the economy and that may be the reason.”
• Financing will be cheaper. “Interest rates are starting to come down and that’s a good thing,” he said. “That hurt business in 2023. We had customers who could buy a new or used vehicle paying 2.9 % to 3.5 % financing who are now paying 7.5 % to 10 %. That makes payments unaffordable if they go to a regular bank. Locally, automakers have their own programs with 0 % financing to not much more than 3.9 % on the new vehicle side. The used vehicle sales will be helped with the interest rates coming down."
• Electric vehicle sales will soften. “The government is pushing to have more EVs on the road to prevent climate change,” Benitez said. “There have been some hiccups and I think customers are maybe not so much inclined to buy EVs because charging has become an issue. And gas prices are down, so there is not so much of an incentive to buy an electric vehicle as a gas vehicle. I hope the government incentives for EVs stay. All the manufacturers have gone into EVs.”
• Will hybrids rule? “In my opinion, I don’t think demand is there ... that 30 % of vehicles will be EVs in 2030. It won’t be more than 15 %,” Benitez said. “People like the reliability of a gas engine, they can gas up anywhere and have the peace of mind they’ll get to where they want to go. The auto industry continues to evolve. What will be the end result? A plug-in hybrid vehicle? We’ll see what the market dictates. We have EVs. We sell ‘em. They’re great. But the market has to learn more about it and get used to driving something different.”