The Miami Innovation Tower is a kinetic sculpture proposed as a new icon for the city of Miami and a major public entry-point into the creative life of the Miami Innovation District at 1031 NW First Avenue. With its fully-integrated active skin—a global first—the Miami Innovation Tower celebrates the unique flavor and vitality of Miami and announces its arrival as a world-class center for information technologies.
The architecture of the tower is inspired by a variety of forms associated with the identity of the city, ranging from contemporary sculpture and fashion to the taught, wing-like, graphics-covered sails of modern racing sailboats—an homage to nearby Biscayne Bay. The lighting, too, is intended as a continuation of the tradition of building illumination that Miami has taken to a high art.
The programming of the tower’s displays will include public service announcements, updates from companies within the district, video art, as well as advertising which, in addition to generating significant revenue for the community, will become art itself as creative directors customize their messages to the special possibilities and parameters of the tower’s unique active skin.
Unlike traditional billboard signage, the mesh-like messaging technologies are in fact integrated completely into the complex, pleated form of the tower’s exterior. The result is an ethereal, highly-transparent surface, open to the slender concrete tower core and views of the city and the sky beyond.
Like the Miami Innovation District as a whole, this Digital Age landmark is also a responsible neighbor. At ground level, a public plaza and amphitheater will host cultural events for all comers, as well as providing an inspiring setting for retail. As it rises, the tower hosts several observation decks, one of which, a garden in the sky, will also serve as a demonstration site for the installation of environmental technologies. Two restaurants complete the Tower’s program.
In addition to drawing visitors to the local Park West streets, these programs will drive sustainable economic growth to the nearby Overtown historic community. They will create employment opportunities—a percentage of which are reserved through agreement with the city for job-seekers from a local labor pool. In addition, a significant proportion of revenue generated by the tower’s signage will be channeled every year to the support of the local community. All of these community benefits are vitally important to the developer, Michael Simkins, whose family presence and philanthropy in Miami span decades.
Inspiring and responsible, inventive and original, rooted in the traditions of the local community even as it marks its place in global culture, the Miami Innovation Tower signals to the world that Miami is holding on to its special flare even as it catches and rides the coming high-tech wave.
Miami Innovation Tower is officially on life support.
Late Thursday, the Miami City Commission ratified an initial June vote adopting an ordinance that eliminates so-called “media towers” on the site proposed for the 633-foot high-rise featuring five large LED signs. The measure, championed by Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado, deletes the term “media towers” from the city’s zoning code known as Miami 21.
However, an attorney for Michael Simkins, the Miami Beach-based developer of the innovation tower, told commissioners that his client plans to move forward with pending permit applications to build the project.
“We will continue to implement this development irrespective of what is done today,” said Tony Recio, a partner with Weiss Serota Helfman Cole & Bierman. “We look forward to having the permits fairly reviewed and evaluated.”
In a statement to The Real Deal, Simkins said he does not believe the new ordinance can be applied to his project.
“We are disappointed by the commission’s action,” Simkins said. “But we expect the city to comply with the law and respect our rights by honoring the sign permit applications and media tower approval by the CRA, and processing the sign applications in good faith.”
City commissioners Frank Carrollo, Willy Gort and Marc Sarnoff again voted in favor of the ordinance despite an impassioned plea from Commissioner Keon Hardemon, who was the innovation tower’s main supporter because he believes the project will generate jobs and millions of dollars in revenue for Overtown.
“That one time things are moving forward in a community that has been stagnant for such a long time, we make sure we put the roadblock right in the middle of it,” Hardemon said. “This is a slap in the face of the Overtown community.”
Simkins has touted the tower as the anchor to a 10-acre technology district that will help revitalize one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods. Hardemon, who represents the district and who is chairman of the Southeast Overtown/Park West Community Development Agency, backs the project because Simkins has agreed to pay the semi-autonomous city agency $5 million prior to construction, and $1 million, or 3 percent of gross sales generated by the project every year after completion.
Recio also said Simkins has committed to giving local preference to Overtown residents on construction jobs and for the operation of the innovation tower.
In June, prior to the city commission’s first vote, Simkins’ company Innovate applied for permits to embed the LED signs within the skin of the proposed tower’s twisting façade and along its pedestal.