Mana Wynwood Could Become Huge Latin American-Asian Financial Center (20K jobs in Miami, Florida)

The Miami New Times ^ | April 11, 2017 | Jerry Iannelli

[2ndDivisionVet]

Miami residents were already skeptical about mega-developer Moishe Mana's plans to pave over a huge portion of Wynwood and build a gleaming micro-city in its place. Mana, who splits his time between Manhattan and the Magic City, is the largest single landowner in Wynwood. For years, he's been fighting to turn his holdings into a gigantic,"arts-based" village complete with luxury shops and 24-story residential towers. But longtime Wynwood patrons have warned that the project would irrevocably change the low-lying warehouse neighborhood into another playground for the ultrarich.

Those complaints came before Mana started comparing himself to Florida pioneer Henry Flagler, and before he unveiled his full, huge plan for the neighborhood. Mana revealed last week that his micro-city will include space for corporations, banks, law firms, government agencies, millions of square feet of office space, and a new luxury hotel. And the whole project will be pitched at Chinese and Asian investors.

The project is a massive step up from the already gigantic plans Mana had for Miami's hippest neighborhood. Last week, Mana's company announced via press release that it's building an entire "Americas-Asia Trade Center and International Financial Center" at his MANA Wynwood property, which Miamians otherwise know as a hip music venue that hosts the music festival III Points. The project is openly advertised in order to court wealthy Chinese investors to the area.

Per the Mana company, the project is split into both a "trade center" and "international financial center." The trade center will contain up to two million square feet of showroom space, one million square feet of office space, 75,000 square feet of retail area, 90,000 square feet of "open space" — and a 400-room hotel. The financial center, meanwhile, will include another million square feet of office space....

[huldah1776]

I was wondering what the noise was about.

“Mana’s goals for the project have always been, to some degree, at odds with the existing vibe in Wynwood. He’s also been questioned over his business tactics several times in the past year: City officials have already accused Mana once of using “bait-and-switch” tactics to skirt paying local development fees for his earlier Wynwood pitch, and a separate contractor sued Mana last year for using what they called “Donald Trump tactics” to avoid paying them for work.”

I would think Mexico City would be better, but I know nothing about this stuff.