An Occupy Miami protest in downtown on Tuesday, timed to coincide with May Day demonstrations by Occupiers across the country, involved a clash between protesters and police that ended with three arrests and accusations of violence by both sides.
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Will the Walmart de Mexico scandal affect Walmart's plans to open its first Miami location? -- photo by Josh Haner/The New York Times
With Walmart trying to garner local support for a proposed two-story store in Midtown, which would be its first Miami location, the retail giant is dealing with the fallout from a hard-hitting, 8,000-word New York Times story on alleged widespread corruption in Mexico.
Update: “In Los Angeles, a Wal-Mart building permit is getting a once-over. In New York, the City Council is investigating a possible land deal with the retailer’s developer in Brooklyn. A state senator in California is pushing for a formal audit of a proposed Wal-Mart in San Diego. And in Boston and its suburbs, residents are pressuring politicians to disclose whether they have received contributions from the company.” — from “Wal-Mart’s U.S. Expansion Plans Complicated by Bribery Scandal” (NYT, 4/31/12)
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After being shut down last month, the food truck roundup is back on for Saturday's Art Walk in Wynwood. -- photo by Robby Campbell
Love ‘em or lament ‘em, the food trucks are going to be back in full force at Art Walk Saturday night. The organizer of the food truck roundup, which sets up in a lot west of N.W. Second Avenue, between 22nd Street and 23rd Street, just sent out an email to all the trucks eligible for the event proclaiming, “WE HAVE A PERMIT AND THE EVENT IS OFFICIALLY ON! START TWEETING AND GET THE WORD OUT!”
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Walmart answers 10 of your questions about its plan to open its first Miami location. -- illustration by Robby Campbell
On March 29, we gave you the opportunity to grill Walmart on its controversial plan to open its first location in the City of Miami, a two-story store in Midtown, and scores of you took the opportunity to be heard in the form of post comments, emails, tweets, and Facebook postings.
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This is a community contribution as part of Beached Miami and Open Media Miami’s joint commitment to provide community news and opinion.
With thousands expected to attend a related rally at Bayfront Park on Sunday, an array of Liberty City community members, diverse in age and ethnicity, gathered in a brightly painted room at the Belafonte Tacolcy Center on Friday to pray and come to terms with the controversial death of Trayvon Martin at the hands of George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer who was not officially arrested for the shooting.
A 17-year-old African American who attended Dr. Michael Krop Senior High School, Martin was visiting his father in Sanford, Fl., when Zimmerman shot him dead in an incident that has garnered international attention and outrage among those who see it as a case of deadly racial profiling. Zimmerman said he shot Martin in self-defense.
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Got questions about Walmart's plan to open its first Miami location? The retail giant is at your service. -- illustration by Robby Campbell
Walmart’s plan to open its first City of Miami location, a two-story store in Midtown, has sparked contentious debate between people who see it as a threat to an emerging neighborhood and others who see it as a boon to residents who will benefit from easy access to inexpensive goods and new jobs. With so much at stake, Beached Miami, which has been leading the local media with its coverage of the Midtown Walmart debate, asked the retail giant if it would field questions from our readers. To its credit, Walmart agreed to be grilled.
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There’s a new twist in the debate over Walmart and the future of Midtown Miami.
A developer opposed to the store opening in the neighborhood, Alex Vadia, has submitted to the City of Miami a preliminary design for “Mpark”, a new urban park to be located on a narrow strip of land on Midtown Boulevard near N.E. 29th Street. The location is significant: The park’s plan includes property that Walmart had planned to use to build the entrance for a parking garage with space for 650 cars.
A preliminary rendering of MPark
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I’m truly moved by Miami students’ mature and engaged response to Trayvon Martin’s killing. But watching this video of a protest in front of Dr. Michael M. Krop Senior High School, where both Trayvon and I went to school, I wonder: Where are the white students? Why aren’t they standing out there with their classmates?
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Two major Midtown landowners are battling over a proposed Walmart for the retail district. -- photo via istockphoto
The development company that owns Midtown Shops allegedly threatened to use an unorthodox legal tactic as part of its effort to bring Walmart to Midtown, one that the opposing lawyer called “distasteful” in a letter submitted to the City of Miami. That same letter also gives a hint of the legal and city code issues that could decide if the store is ever built or not.
The letter (in full below) is from Midtown Opportunities, a company managed by Alex Vadia that owns undeveloped land in Midtown and is opposed to Walmart’s plans to build a store in the neighborhood. The letter presents two key arguments:
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Presenters at the "Making Miami" Pecha Kucha had 20 seconds to explain their vision for a better Miami.
Proposal: Line every street in Miami-Dade County with trees. Quick, you have only 20 seconds to explain how to do it. All you need is about $35 million, less than the average $40 million spent on one of Miami’s highway overpasses.
Scattering more than 1.2 million trees across the county was only one of 20 20-second presentations on how to make Miami’s urban communities more livable Thursday night at Wood Tavern in Wynwood. The format, started in Tokyo in 2003 by a pair of architects, is called Pecha Kucha — pronounce it as one word and let it roll off the tongue the way you would “buhdonkadonk.”
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