The Central Business District (CBD) of

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...

is the historic

central business district A central business district (CBD) is the commercial and business centre of a city. It contains commercial space and offices, and in larger cities will often be described as a financial district. Geographically, it often coincides with the "city ...

and city center of what has become Greater Downtown Miami in

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

. Over 92,000 people work in Miami's Central Business District. The Central Business District is generally bound by

Biscayne Boulevard U.S. Highway 1 (US 1) in Florida runs along the state's east coast from Key West to its crossing of the St. Marys River (Florida/Georgia), St. Marys River into Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia north of Boulogne, Florida, Boulogne and south of ...

Bayfront Park Bayfront Park is a public, urban park in Downtown Miami, Florida on Biscayne Bay. The Chairman to the trust is Ary Shaeban. Located in the park is a bronze statue of Christopher Columbus sculpted by Count Vittorio di Colbertaldo of Verona, one ...

and Museum Park on the east, the Miami River to the south, North 6th Street to the north, and Interstate 95 to the west. While it is technically Miami's official "

downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business distric ...

", the term "Downtown Miami" has come to refer to a much larger area along the bay from the Rickenbacker Causeway to the

Julia Tuttle Causeway Julia is usually a feminine given name. It is a Latinate feminine form of the name Julio and Julius. (For further details on etymology, see the Wiktionary entry "Julius".) The given name ''Julia'' had been in use throughout Late Antiquity (e.g. ...

. It is also distinct from the financial district, which neighbors Brickell to the south. The Central Business District of Miami has over of office space, including more than fifteen buildings with greater than of floor space.

History

Downtown Miami Central Business District

The City of Miami was officially incorporated as a city on July 28, 1896 with a population of just over 300. Downtown is the historic heart of Miami, and along with Coconut Grove, is the oldest settled area of Miami, with early pioneer settlement dating to the early 19th century. Urban development began in the 1890s with the construction of the

Florida East Coast Railway The Florida East Coast Railway is a Class II railroad operating in the U.S. state of Florida, currently owned by Grupo México. Built primarily in the last quarter of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th century, the FEC was a pr ...

Standard Oil Standard Oil Company, Inc., was an American oil production, transportation, refining, and marketing company that operated from 1870 to 1911. At its height, Standard Oil was the largest petroleum company in the world, and its success made its co-f ...

industrialist

Henry Flagler Henry Morrison Flagler (January 2, 1830 – May 20, 1913) was an American industrialist and a founder of Standard Oil, which was first based in Ohio. He was also a key figure in the development of the Atlantic coast of Florida and founde ...

down to Miami at the insistence of Julia Tuttle. Flagler, along with developers such as William Brickell and

George E. Merrick George Edgar Merrick (June 3, 1886 – March 26, 1942) was a real estate developer who is best known as the planner and builder of the city of Coral Gables, Florida in the 1920s, one of the first major planned communities in the United States. ...

helped bring developer interest to the city with the construction of hotels, resorts, homes, and the extension of Flagler's rail line.

Flagler Street Flagler Street is a main east–west road in Miami. Flagler Street is the latitudinal baseline that divides all the streets on the Miami-Dade County grid plan as north or south streets (the east-west division is along Miami Avenue). Flagle ...

, originating in Downtown, is a major east-west road in Miami named after the tycoon; the

, crossing Biscayne Bay just north of Downtown in Edgewater, is named in honor of Tuttle.

Character

The CBD has long been

dense Density (volumetric mass density or specific mass) is the substance's mass per unit of volume. The symbol most often used for density is ''ρ'' (the lower case Greek letter rho), although the Latin letter ''D'' can also be used. Mathematically ...

with retail and office space, as well as some lofts and apartments, but recently has seen large scale high-rise residential development as during Miami housing market booms in the aughts and continuing again in the 2010s. Though the historically wealthy suburb of Brickell to the south remains much more popular, downtown has seen urban buildings such as The Loft, The Loft 2, and

Centro Lofts Centro Lofts in a high-rise loft condominium project in Downtown CBD of Miami, Florida. Construction began in December 2013, and the project opened in mid 2016. The project, which has 352 units, is unique for being one of the few modern buildings ...

which have no built-in

parking Parking is the act of stopping and disengaging a vehicle and leaving it unoccupied. Parking on one or both sides of a road is often permitted, though sometimes with restrictions. Some buildings have parking facilities for use of the buildings' ...

as well as more traditional luxury condos such as the bayfront

50 Biscayne 50 Biscayne is a fifty-seven story skyscraper condo in the Central Business District of Downtown Miami, Florida, United States. As its name implies, the tower is located at the address of 50 Biscayne Boulevard in between Flagler and Northeast 1st ...

and Vizcayne. Wolfson Campus, the primary (but not largest) campus of Miami-Dade College is located in the CBD, with about ten buildings around NE 5 Street and NE 2 Ave. The historic

, which is the north-south divider of the street grid in Miami-Dade, may undergo a major renovation from the Miami River to the terminus at Biscayne Boulevard starting by 2016. The project was publicized in 2014 and has faced several delays.

Transportation

The

Metromover Metromover is a free mass transit automated people mover train system operated by Miami-Dade Transit in Miami, Florida, United States. Metromover serves the Downtown Miami, Brickell, Park West and Arts & Entertainment District neighborhoods. M ...

Inner Loop is located entirely within the CBD, as is Metrorail's Government Center station, where the rapid transit and people mover systems meet. This is the busiest station for both systems and sees over 15,000 riders on an average weekday. It is located on the west side of downtown in the Government Center area, which has a large concentration of city, county, state, and federal offices. The area is also heavily served by the

Metrobus (Miami-Dade County) The Metrobus network provides bus service throughout Miami-Dade County 365 days a year. It consists of about 93 routes and 893 buses, which connect most points in the county and part of southern Broward County as well. As of , the system has rid ...

and

Miami Trolley The Greater Miami area, composed of the three counties of Miami-Dade County, Miami-Dade, Broward County, Florida, Broward, and Palm Beach County, Palm Beach, also known collectively as Miami metropolitan area, South Florida, is home to a wide va ...

, as well as

taxicab A taxi, also known as a taxicab or simply a cab, is a type of vehicle for hire with a driver, used by a single passenger or small group of passengers, often for a non-shared ride. A taxicab conveys passengers between locations of their choice ...

s, ridesharing companies, and shared scooters. Downtown Miami as defined by Walk Score which includes Brickell and the Arts & Entertainment District, is considered "very walkable" and as having "world-class public transportation", as well as being "very bikeable".

Gallery

File:MiamiAvenue1896.jpg, Miami Avenue in 1896, when approximately 400 men voted to incorporate Miami as a city File:Flaglerstreet Miami 1945.jpg, Crowds on

Downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business distric ...

on August 15, 1945, 20 minutes after the announcement of Japan's surrender at the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

File:Common Downtown shot 2011 all tagged including OBP.jpg , View of downtown over Biscayne Bay with larger buildings marked. File:Miami skyscrapers from Bayfront Park, June 2016.jpg, View of downtown skyscrapers from

File:Biscayne Wall Miami.jpg, As the CBD has "Manhattanized" along with the Greater Downtown area, a phenomenon known as the "Biscayne Wall" has emerged. File:Miamimanhattanizationdowntown.jpg, The early " Manhattanization" of downtown Miami, in 2007

References

External links