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 coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at ...

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 Downtown Miami is the urban city center of Miami, Florida. The city's greater downtown region consists of the Central Business District, Brickell, the Historic District, Government Center, the Arts & Entertainment District, and Park West. It ...

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 ...

. 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 into Georgia north of Boulogne and south of Folkston. US 1 was designated through Florida when the U.S. Number ...

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, ...

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 district ...

", 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. ...

. 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 Coconut Grove, also known colloquially as The Grove, is the oldest continuously inhabited neighborhood of Miami in Miami-Dade County, Florida. The neighborhood is roughly bound by North Prospect Drive to the south, LeJeune Road to the west, S ...

, 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 p ...

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- ...

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 founder ...

down to Miami at the insistence of

Julia Tuttle Julia DeForest Tuttle (née Sturtevant; January 22, 1849 – September 14, 1898) was an American businesswoman who owned the property upon which Miami, Florida, was built. For this reason, she is called the "Mother of Miami." She is the only woma ...

. 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). Flag ...

, 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 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 The Loft 2 is a residential skyscraper in the Central Business District of Downtown Miami, Florida, United States. It is part of the complex " Loft Miami", which includes the shorter "The Loft" and "The Loft 3", which was cancelled. The building ...

, 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 Vizcayne (formerly known as "Everglades on the Bay") is an urban development in the City of Miami, Florida. It is located in northeastern Downtown Miami and consists of two residential skyscrapers, North Tower and the South Tower as well as a ...

Wolfson Campus Miami Dade College (Wolfson Campus) is one of Miami Dade College’s eight campuses. The campus was opened in 1970, holding classes in storefronts in Downtown Miami, Florida. As the only comprehensive urban campus in the City of Miami, Wolfson Ca ...

, the primary (but not largest) campus of

Miami-Dade College Miami Dade College (Miami Dade, MDC or Dade) is a public college in Miami, Florida. Founded in 1959, it has a total of eight campuses and twenty-one outreach centers throughout Miami-Dade County. It is the largest college in the Florida Colle ...

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 neighborho ...

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, Broward, and Palm Beach, also known collectively as South Florida, is home to a wide variety of public and private transportation systems. These include heavy rail mass tra ...

, 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 choi ...

s, ridesharing companies, and shared scooters. Downtown Miami as defined by Walk Score which includes Brickell and the

Arts & Entertainment District The Arts & Entertainment District, or previously known as Omni, is a neighborhood of Downtown Miami, Florida. It is bound roughly by North 19th Street to the north, North 10th Street to the south, North East 2nd Avenue to the west, and Biscayne Bo ...

, 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 district ...

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 World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

File:Common Downtown shot 2011 all tagged including OBP.jpg , View of downtown over

Biscayne Bay Biscayne Bay () is a lagoon with characteristics of an estuary located on the Atlantic coast of South Florida. The northern end of the lagoon is surrounded by the densely developed heart of the Miami metropolitan area while the southern end is la ...

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