The New York Times – March 30, 2010

A SoHo Visionary Makes an Artsy Bet in Miami
By TERRY PRISTIN

MIAMI — The developer Tony Goldman is known for envisioning thriving and architecturally appealing neighborhoods where others see only desolation or neglect. He was a major force in the revival of SoHo and South Beach, and has invested his time and money transforming small stretches of Center City Philadelphia and the financial district in New York.

Now, Mr. Goldman’s effort to work the same magic in Wynwood, a former industrial neighborhood here just north of downtown and a mile and a half west of Biscayne Bay, is starting, slowly, to bear fruit. Since 2004, he has spent some $35 million to buy about two dozen buildings.

On a recent tour, Mr. Goldman pointed out galleries that have sprouted in brightly painted cinderblock buildings once used as warehouses by shoe manufacturers; a former junkyard that now houses a stainless-steel sculpture park; and a new restaurant, Joey’s, which is named for his son and draws a fashionable crowd. Mr. Goldman has always used restaurants, whether the Greene Street Cafe in SoHo or Lucky’s in South Beach, to get people to talk about a neighborhood.

To provide an incentive to restaurateurs, the Goldmans persuaded Miami officials to ease parking-space requirements. Now Joey’s is one of seven recently opened lounges and restaurants in Wynwood. “He’s the perfect neighbor for us,” said Mera Rubell, an owner of the Rubell Family Collection, which operates out of a Wynwood warehouse. “Not only did he buy properties here, but now he’s bringing life and activity to them.”

The latest buzz-generating addition to Wynwood is the eye-catching display of murals by prominent street artists that Mr. Goldman and the gallery owner Jeffrey Deitch commissioned in time for Art Basel, the annual art fair in Miami Beach that was held in December.

Mr. Goldman provided lodging for the artists, who included Kenny Scharf, Shepard Fairey and Os Gemeos, at the Park Central, one of two hotels he owns in South Beach, and provided the canvas — freshly painted warehouse walls between Northwest Second and Third Avenues — but did not pay them. “I wanted to know that they had a desire to be part of this collective project,” he said.

Mr. Goldman said he sensed Wynwood’s potential the first time he saw it. The area had a critical mass of similar-looking small-scale buildings, a street grid, sidewalks and structures built right to the property line — the essential ingredients for a signature Goldman neighborhood.

“Wynwood spoke to me right away,” said Mr. Goldman, who is based in New York but has offices in Miami, Philadelphia and Boston. “It had an urban grit that was ready to be discovered and articulated.” Another advantage was that the district could be redeveloped without displacing the surrounding Puerto Rican neighborhood, he said.

Mr. Goldman is not the first to invest recently in Wynwood, which stretches from Northwest 20th Street to Northwest 36th Street and from North Miami Avenue to Northwest Sixth Avenue. The Rubell family has displayed its extensive contemporary art collection on North 29th Street since 1993.

The Margulies Collection at the Warehouse, devoted to contemporary works owned by the real estate magnate Martin Z. Margulies, opened in 1999. David Lombardi, a local developer and broker, followed the next year and currently owns 40 properties in Wynwood.

Tony and Joey Goldman have chosen their properties based on their expectations about how the neighborhood would evolve, the elder Mr. Goldman said. “We are planting a forest where there was no visible foliage,” he said. “How a single planting pollinates to adjacent properties is part of the strategy.” He said about three-quarters of his buildings were leased, mainly to galleries.

In their next step, the Goldmans are developing a 14,000-square-foot performance studio in a warehouse on Northwest 26th Street for an arts group called the Miami Light Project; the space is to be shared by several nonprofit organizations.

Mr. Lombardi said Mr. Goldman’s experience and marketing skills had been a boon. “The best thing that ever happened to me was him coming here,” Mr. Lombardi said.

At 66, Mr. Goldman keeps a busy schedule, but his life took a new turn after he received a diagnosis of interstitial pulmonary fibrosis a few years ago and underwent a double lung transplant. Since his illness — and the slowdown in the real estate market — Mr. Goldman has spent much of his time consulting on projects like improving downtown Newark and rejuvenating Flagler Street in the heart of downtown Miami. “What cities are desperate for are ideas that are fresh and unexpected,” he said.

He is contributing his time to an effort to restore the Miami Marine Stadium, a 1964 structure that has been closed for almost two decades, as the centerpiece of a waterfront park.

In addition, Mr. Goldman is planning the next phase of a project in Center City Philadelphia that took 10 years but led to the revitalization of a seedy section between Chestnut and Walnut Streets.

Plans to create another SoHo on the Boston waterfront have stalled, however. Mr. Goldman, who generally avoids working with partners, was brought to the project by the Archon Group, an affiliate of Goldman Sachs. But Archon did not want to wait for the real estate market to recover, he said. “Their goals were shorter term than mine,” Mr. Goldman said. About half the buildings were sold.

Given Mr. Goldman’s track record — which includes the redevelopment of Stone Street in the financial district into a popular restaurant row — few people would bet against Wynwood’s long-range prospects. “He has a superrefined instinct for what creates a great neighborhood and the potential for commercial success,” said Neisen O. Kasdin, a lawyer who worked with Mr. Goldman on South Beach.

But there are challenges. Wynwood’s signature warehouses lack the architectural interest of SoHo’s cast-iron manufacturing buildings or South Beach’s Art Deco hotels. The side streets near some of Mr. Goldman’s properties are lined with shabby housing. Private guards patrol the neighborhood.

The glutted residential market means new housing is at least five years away, Mr. Goldman said. Mr. Lombardi, who sold all 36 units of his Wynwood Lofts condominium development five years ago, recently suspended plans to build a second condo building.

With SoHo and South Beach, the task was to preserve the “irreplaceable assets” that were already there, Mr. Goldman said. “Wynwood, on the other hand, is another story,” he said. “You virtually have to create a place.” Tony Cho, the president of Metro 1 Properties, a brokerage firm based in one of Wynwood’s converted warehouses, said the neighborhood was catching on with Miamians who found South Beach too touristy and expensive. “There’s definitely a demand for something that’s not South Beach,” Mr. Cho said.

Recently, a client of Mr. Cho’s, Moishe Mana, the founder of Moishe’s Moving and Storage, bought eight and a half acres of land in Wynwood for only $5 million.

“I think the Goldmans may have been a little early in buying,” Mr. Cho said. But Mr. Goldman said he always buys early and does not try to time the market. “That’s not my business,” he said.

Robert Kaplan, a principal of Olympian Capital Group, a mortgage brokerage firm in Miami, said the Goldmans had acquired better-quality properties than other Wynwood investors. “He obviously is way ahead of the curve,” Mr. Kaplan said. “He has a low enough basis to be able to hold them, make incremental improvements, and survive or do a little better than survive and be poised for the next move up.”

Mr. Goldman said he had sold only one Wynwood building so far but would probably sell a few others to reduce his debt. Still, he said he was prepared to stick it out in the neighborhood no matter how long the process took. “The work we do is not for the faint of heart,” he said.

New York Times – March 30, 2010

A SoHo Visionary Makes an Artsy Bet in Miami
By TERRY PRISTIN

MIAMI — The developer Tony Goldman is known for envisioning thriving and architecturally appealing neighborhoods where others see only desolation or neglect. He was a major force in the revival of SoHo and South Beach, and has invested his time and money transforming small stretches of Center City Philadelphia and the financial district in New York.

Now, Mr. Goldman’s effort to work the same magic in Wynwood, a former industrial neighborhood here just north of downtown and a mile and a half west of Biscayne Bay, is starting, slowly, to bear fruit. Since 2004, he has spent some $35 million to buy about two dozen buildings.

On a recent tour, Mr. Goldman pointed out galleries that have sprouted in brightly painted cinderblock buildings once used as warehouses by shoe manufacturers; a former junkyard that now houses a stainless-steel sculpture park; and a new restaurant, Joey’s, which is named for his son and draws a fashionable crowd. Mr. Goldman has always used restaurants, whether the Greene Street Cafe in SoHo or Lucky’s in South Beach, to get people to talk about a neighborhood.

To provide an incentive to restaurateurs, the Goldmans persuaded Miami officials to ease parking-space requirements. Now Joey’s is one of seven recently opened lounges and restaurants in Wynwood. “He’s the perfect neighbor for us,” said Mera Rubell, an owner of the Rubell Family Collection, which operates out of a Wynwood warehouse. “Not only did he buy properties here, but now he’s bringing life and activity to them.”

The latest buzz-generating addition to Wynwood is the eye-catching display of murals by prominent street artists that Mr. Goldman and the gallery owner Jeffrey Deitch commissioned in time for Art Basel, the annual art fair in Miami Beach that was held in December.

Mr. Goldman provided lodging for the artists, who included Kenny Scharf, Shepard Fairey and Os Gemeos, at the Park Central, one of two hotels he owns in South Beach, and provided the canvas — freshly painted warehouse walls between Northwest Second and Third Avenues — but did not pay them. “I wanted to know that they had a desire to be part of this collective project,” he said.

Mr. Goldman said he sensed Wynwood’s potential the first time he saw it. The area had a critical mass of similar-looking small-scale buildings, a street grid, sidewalks and structures built right to the property line — the essential ingredients for a signature Goldman neighborhood.

“Wynwood spoke to me right away,” said Mr. Goldman, who is based in New York but has offices in Miami, Philadelphia and Boston. “It had an urban grit that was ready to be discovered and articulated.” Another advantage was that the district could be redeveloped without displacing the surrounding Puerto Rican neighborhood, he said.

Mr. Goldman is not the first to invest recently in Wynwood, which stretches from Northwest 20th Street to Northwest 36th Street and from North Miami Avenue to Northwest Sixth Avenue. The Rubell family has displayed its extensive contemporary art collection on North 29th Street since 1993.

The Margulies Collection at the Warehouse, devoted to contemporary works owned by the real estate magnate Martin Z. Margulies, opened in 1999. David Lombardi, a local developer and broker, followed the next year and currently owns 40 properties in Wynwood.

Tony and Joey Goldman have chosen their properties based on their expectations about how the neighborhood would evolve, the elder Mr. Goldman said. “We are planting a forest where there was no visible foliage,” he said. “How a single planting pollinates to adjacent properties is part of the strategy.” He said about three-quarters of his buildings were leased, mainly to galleries.

In their next step, the Goldmans are developing a 14,000-square-foot performance studio in a warehouse on Northwest 26th Street for an arts group called the Miami Light Project; the space is to be shared by several nonprofit organizations.

Mr. Lombardi said Mr. Goldman’s experience and marketing skills had been a boon. “The best thing that ever happened to me was him coming here,” Mr. Lombardi said.

At 66, Mr. Goldman keeps a busy schedule, but his life took a new turn after he received a diagnosis of interstitial pulmonary fibrosis a few years ago and underwent a double lung transplant. Since his illness — and the slowdown in the real estate market — Mr. Goldman has spent much of his time consulting on projects like improving downtown Newark and rejuvenating Flagler Street in the heart of downtown Miami. “What cities are desperate for are ideas that are fresh and unexpected,” he said.

He is contributing his time to an effort to restore the Miami Marine Stadium, a 1964 structure that has been closed for almost two decades, as the centerpiece of a waterfront park.

In addition, Mr. Goldman is planning the next phase of a project in Center City Philadelphia that took 10 years but led to the revitalization of a seedy section between Chestnut and Walnut Streets.

Plans to create another SoHo on the Boston waterfront have stalled, however. Mr. Goldman, who generally avoids working with partners, was brought to the project by the Archon Group, an affiliate of Goldman Sachs. But Archon did not want to wait for the real estate market to recover, he said. “Their goals were shorter term than mine,” Mr. Goldman said. About half the buildings were sold.

Given Mr. Goldman’s track record — which includes the redevelopment of Stone Street in the financial district into a popular restaurant row — few people would bet against Wynwood’s long-range prospects. “He has a superrefined instinct for what creates a great neighborhood and the potential for commercial success,” said Neisen O. Kasdin, a lawyer who worked with Mr. Goldman on South Beach.

But there are challenges. Wynwood’s signature warehouses lack the architectural interest of SoHo’s cast-iron manufacturing buildings or South Beach’s Art Deco hotels. The side streets near some of Mr. Goldman’s properties are lined with shabby housing. Private guards patrol the neighborhood.

The glutted residential market means new housing is at least five years away, Mr. Goldman said. Mr. Lombardi, who sold all 36 units of his Wynwood Lofts condominium development five years ago, recently suspended plans to build a second condo building.

With SoHo and South Beach, the task was to preserve the “irreplaceable assets” that were already there, Mr. Goldman said. “Wynwood, on the other hand, is another story,” he said. “You virtually have to create a place.” Tony Cho, the president of Metro 1 Properties, a brokerage firm based in one of Wynwood’s converted warehouses, said the neighborhood was catching on with Miamians who found South Beach too touristy and expensive. “There’s definitely a demand for something that’s not South Beach,” Mr. Cho said.

Recently, a client of Mr. Cho’s, Moishe Mana, the founder of Moishe’s Moving and Storage, bought eight and a half acres of land in Wynwood for only $5 million.

“I think the Goldmans may have been a little early in buying,” Mr. Cho said. But Mr. Goldman said he always buys early and does not try to time the market. “That’s not my business,” he said.

Robert Kaplan, a principal of Olympian Capital Group, a mortgage brokerage firm in Miami, said the Goldmans had acquired better-quality properties than other Wynwood investors. “He obviously is way ahead of the curve,” Mr. Kaplan said. “He has a low enough basis to be able to hold them, make incremental improvements, and survive or do a little better than survive and be poised for the next move up.”

Mr. Goldman said he had sold only one Wynwood building so far but would probably sell a few others to reduce his debt. Still, he said he was prepared to stick it out in the neighborhood no matter how long the process took. “The work we do is not for the faint of heart,” he said.