Miami's Botched Foreign Trade Zone Development

What could have been an economic development homerun for Miami's Wynwood neighborhood has turned out to be a miserable failure. Nonetheless, hope remains that new ownership can restore the site's promising potential.

1 minute read

October 15, 2007, 12:00 PM PDT

By Mike Lydon

"Behind wide-open gates, the big warehouse and office building -- the product of millions of dollars in public investment -- stands empty and trashed, windows busted out, covered in graffiti, stripped by vandals of anything of value.

This is all that remains of the Wynwood Foreign Trade Zone, a commercial project whose sponsors once pledged 3,000 jobs for a struggling community. It never got off the ground, done in by 17 years of infighting and a skein of lawsuits steeped in claims of ethnic discrimination.

Now the bankrupt nonprofit group behind the trade zone stands to receive a multimillion-dollar windfall from a project that by any measure has been a rotund failure."

FULL STORY: Failed Wynwood site attracts bids

Monday, October 15, 2007 in The Miami Herald

Community / Economic Development Government / Politics Urban Development Florida

I love the variety of courses, many practical, and all richly illustrated. They have inspired many ideas that I've applied in practice, and in my own teaching. Mary G., Urban Planner

I love the variety of courses, many practical, and all richly illustrated. They have inspired many ideas that I've applied in practice, and in my own teaching.

Mary G., Urban Planner

Get top-rated, practical training

Start Learning

Advertise with us

Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools

This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.