Mega Miami Development Seeks to Tame the Car

Planned for the outskirts of Miami's current urban core, Hong Kong developer Swire Properties' CitiCentre project will feature two residential towers, an office tower, hotel, and 520,000-square-foot mall. But it's the project's efforts to keep automobiles "as low-profile as possible" that have Hanks's attention.

"CitiCentre will spend millions of dollars freezing the soil beneath the
three-block complex to hold back ground water while it installs a rare
underground parking garage in Miami's downtown," notes Hanks, who also points out that, "Swire took the unusual
step of putting the restaurants for its mall on a top floor in part
because that's the same level as the adjoining station for Miami's
county-run Metromover."

"Swire's top U.S. executive told a business group Wednesday that the
$1 billion CitiCentre was designed to thrive in a future where Miami
residents are far less enamored with driving to work and play than they
are now," writes Hanks. 

"'We don't think petrol will be $5 a gallon forever,' Stephen
Owens, president of Swire Properties Inc., told a breakfast reception
held by the Beacon Council, Miami-Dade's economic-development group. 'We're living in a world of subsidized energy, and we don't think it can
last forever.'"

According to Hanks, "The push to make CitiCentre more pedestrian
friendly also meshes with Miami's ambitions to become more of a 24-hour
metropolis, where thriving shopping areas serve both offices and
residences."