As you leave the Miami Lakes’ car dealer neighborhood in the Upper East Side of town, there are more businesses that face Northwest 57 Avenue/Red Road.
South of Northwest 167th Street and the Miami Lakes AutoMall, there is a Bank of America branch; the shuttered Hialeah Church of Christ whose congregation worships elsewhere; Advance Auto Parts and a Taco Bell restaurant.
Continuing south along Northwest 58 Avenue, you’ll find Southeastern College and Lufthansa Technik, which share a building.
Lufthansa Technik focuses on maintenance for the German airline’s fleet.
“We moved [to the neighborhood] in January of 2021,” said Julia Corona, executive director of Southeastern College.
The school was previously located in unincorporated Miami-Dade County on the north side of the Palmetto Expressway. It has been a presence in the area for 15 years.
Southeastern College also has locations in West Palm Beach; Charleston, S.C.; Columbia, S.C. and Charlotte, N.C.
The Miami Lakes campus offers a variety of associate degrees and career training diplomas primarily for jobs in the health care industry and are in demand in the area, according to Corona.
“[The] top employer in the medical field is Lakes Radiology,” Corona said of the company that is headquartered farther south, on Wellness Way.
Students and graduates are also working at Larkin Community Hospital in Hialeah; Hialeah Hospital and local pediatric and medical offices, she said.
“A lot of our students stay in the community and they’re [working] in the community they live in,” Corona said.
Going forward, the college hopes to expand while continuing to help the workforce and serving the community.
“It’s really the students, [and] we’re meeting their needs,” Corona said.
This is the second in a series on the Upper East Side neighborhood.