As someone who grew up going to the Grove as a kid going to the bed races and then a college student drinking at the bars, I’m glad to see the Grove make a comeback with new restaurants, parks and access to the waterfront, but it’s not without some growing pains. The Grove at times seems like a ghost town with businesses opening and closing overnight or worse yet storefronts sitting vacant for months at a time. Construction has made the tree lined streets you used to bike a hazard and traffic is unbearable with even less available parking. But it’s great, right? We have towers upon towers upon towers going up, and for who? I’m not quite sure especially with the rumored tax bill. Miami’s never been a skyscraper city, mixed use hasn’t quite caught on and in the lazy, laid back, artist community that was Coconut Grove even less. What happened to beautification projects, protecting the canopy, complaining about peacocks and exploring the waterfront for residents to enjoy? The latest was a construction moratorium that was supposed to be in effect for the holidays to help ease congestion and assist the businesses, but there are still cranes, cement trucks and construction men all around the Grove. Residents aren’t quite sure what the City may have meant by moratorium, or if this may have been just another oversight.
Leave a Reply