Miami Mirror – True Reflections 

Building on Blighted CANDO block optioned by Ron Bloomberg (Miami Mirror (2011)

CAN CANDO DO?

Rehashing Former Miami Beach Mayor David Dermer’s Pipe Dream

January 25, 2011

by David Arthur Walters
MIAMI MIRROR

MIAMI BEACH. CANDO, short for Cultural Arts Neighborhood District Overlay, was the talk
of the town in 2007 when traffic ticket lawyer David Dermer was Mayor of Miami Beach, but
now South Beach’s officially designated art district in and around South Beach’s Collins Park is
scarcely mentioned. Critics said the talk was a lot of hype to begin with, designed to prostitute
art to real estate development and thus speed up gentrification; it was referred to as “Lipstick on
a pig,” “political fluff,” “a pretty façade,” and “the CANDO condo con.”

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Steve Mayo waxed enthusiastically in an article published by the Miami Arts Guide entitled
‘What is Up with Cando? New Cultural Arts Neighborhood in Miami Beach will bring artists
back’: “Last year during his State of the City Address, Mayor David Dermer talked the talk
about forming a committee to guide the creation of the cultural arts neighborhood district
overlay, CANDO. This year the committee walked the walk, and not only formed the cultural
arts neighborhood but tapped the Miami Beach Community Development Corporation to fund
the purchase of The Barclay House at 1940 Park Avenue., The Allen at 2001 Washington Ave.,
and The London House at 1965-1975 Washington Ave. to be converted to affordable housing.
‘The city is taking it seriously,’ explained Jeremy Chestler, executive director of
ArtCenter/South Florida, who also serves on the committee, ‘not only be supporting the idea by
pulling such a diverse committee, but with its financial commitment.’”

On January 25, 2007, Miami Today’s Charlotte Libov chimed in with the CANDO concert under
the headline ‘Beach moves to buy apartments for cultural-arts district’: “The City of Miami
Beach will pursue a $13.7 million purchase of three vintage apartment houses that are to be the
linchpin of a new cultural-arts district by providing affordable housing…. ‘I am delighted and
relieved,’ said Nancy Lieberman, chairwoman of the mayoral committee spearheading the
creation of the Cultural Arts Neighborhood District Overlay….The Barclay and London House
are currently used for low-income rental housing. The Allen is vacant.”

On July 1, 2007, a Miami Herald editorial gushingly endorsed the very process that has
transformed South Beach from a poor person’s paradise to a rich hedonist’s Mecca: “South
Beach has been transformed from a haven for the aged and poor immigrants to one of the hottest
locales on the planet.”

Building on Blighted CANDO block optioned by Ron Bloomberg (Miami Mirror (2011)

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The CANDO propaganda was trumpeted as low-income residents including “cultural workers”
were literally evicted from their humble apartments all over South Beach, and area once known
as a “poor man’s paradise” before promoters dubbed it “South Beach” – although the City
promised temporary housing for a few days, there were many sad scenes of people standing on
the sidewalks with their few possessions. However, as far as the gentry were concerned: good
riddance. The “cultural trash” was gone and the rehabilitated Art Deco buildings were quite
pretty to behold and perhaps profitable to speculate on.

One ambitious CANDO activist claimed that she did not really care how much real estate
developers and their politicians raked off the public. She said it was important to be positive, to
focus only on the image of affordable housing for artists, and not to discourage artists with
questions about whether or not they would qualify for the so-called affordable housing for artists.
The appearance of going along with the latest trend is the key to success in hedonistic South
Beach, where persons who questions the trend let alone object to it are always wrong. Going
along has its rewards for ambitious climbers and people with altruistic intentions who are willing
to work for nothing on committees and the like for awhile. Unfortunately, many people with
good intentions who suck up to authority and climb onto the bandwagon to popularize current
events do not know what is going on. They are reluctant to get off the bandwagon even when
they see it is going to hell on good intentions. The truth might be revealed, but the prevarications
are reverted to in the very next breath to save us from being deemed damned fools by our sworn
enemies in the war of all against all.

David Dermer, who headed the CANDO committee, was elected mayor for his first term as a
consequence of his activism against high-rise development and gentrification of Miami Beach.
He moderated his views after he took office; high-rise development and gentrification
accelerated. Now he said he was initiating the CANDO ordinance to “reverse the gentrification
process whereby high rents and property values displace artists, art galleries and cultural
activities from the area of the delineated district.”

The expressly stated intent of the proposed CANDO ordinance, which would soon be passed by
the City Commission without seriously considering objections, was to “provide land use
incentives to property owners, developers and commercial business to create affordable housing
for cultural workers, encourage arts-related businesses to establish within the district, and to
create mandatory requirements for new construction and rehabilitation of housing units.”
Specifically, if developers submit a statement of intent to “construct housing for moderate
income cultural arts workers” according to the provisions of the ordinance, they will enjoy
certain exceptions to the development regulations and setback requirements; for example,
existing units rehabilitated in the CANDO overlay district would be exempted from the
minimum average unit size of 550 square feet if 25% of the units are set aside for cultural arts
workers with moderate income; new mixed-use construction subject to rules for an allowable
increase in the Floor Area Ratio shall be required to meet the 550 square feet minimum unit size
but shall be exempt from meeting an average unit size of 800 square feet if 50% of the increased
area is set aside for cultural arts workers of moderate income.”

The term “moderate” had been substituted for the term “affordable” appearing in previous drafts,
yet CANDO propagandists including the Miami Herald continued to harp the “affordable
income” refrain. The income guidelines seemed to fluctuate with the spin. At one time the range

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of qualified income was said to be from $28,509 to $67,080, and absurdly, from 0% to 120% of
the median income for the region. The “struggling artists” of Miami Beach became the cause
célèbre of CANDO advocates. According to the mayor’s CANDO coordinator, the late A.C.
Weinstein, political fixer and former mud-raking journalist, even struggling writers would
qualify for CANDO housing because they are “bullshit artists.”

The Miami Mirror selected Darwin Leon for its exemplary artist, a skilled and extraordinarily
talented cubo-surrealistic painter who taught traditional drawing techniques at ArtCenter/South
Florida, where he also worked the front desk – the postmodern CANDO administration at the
Center rejected his several applications for residency there. Mr. Leon left Cuba after his father, a
solar expert, was persecuted by the Castro regime; he landed in Spain, and eventually relocated
to Miami, where he and his family were saddled with onerous student loans so he could realize
the American Dream; he worked for the Bass Museum for awhile, had a wife and two kids, and
was earning about $12,000 per year teaching art and selling a few paintings during the CANDO
campaign.

Art Instruction by Darwin Leon

www.darwinleon.com

On September 2, 2007, the Herald’s Miami Beach beat reporter Tania Valdemoro described the
attempt of journalist David Arthur Walters to bring forward sufficient facts in polite language for
the public to make a well-informed decision as a “rail” i.e. ‘to condemn or attack in bitter or
abusive language.’ (Houghton Mifflin’s College Dictionary) ‘David Arthur Walters, a South
Beach resident, has railed against CANDO on City Debate, a website critical of [Miami Beach
Mayor] Dermer and City Hall, saying the guidelines [for so-called affordable housing for artists]

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are still too high. “Indeed, most so-called cultural arts workers I known, in marked contrast to
cultural arts managers, executives, and directors, make less than $28,509,” he said.’

In an unread Petition to the City Commission, Mr. Walters said that the CANDO ordinance
excluded, “in respect to artists, all but the privileged in-group of contemporary artists associated
with the political and economic power elite including politicians and real estate developers.”

Ms. Valdemoro selected two examples for her Miami Herald article on the subject. First of all,
Jill Hotchkiss, a twenty-something artist who specialized in installations and organisms that grew
on plants. She came down from Gainesville to ArtCenter/South Florida because of its reputation
as an art haven and for having cheap studio space. She was paying $400 month for that space,
but her South Beach apartment ran $1,800 month. If we added another $1,000 for living
expenses, that would total $3,200 per month, or $38,400 per year, a small fortune for Miami,
reportedly the most impoverished city in the country. According to the Herald, she was trying to
figure out how to “maintain” her finances, and no doubt many consultants would have enjoyed
helping her do just that given her attractions. Ms. Valdemoro said nothing of Ms. Hotchkiss’
source of income, or how much she actually earned at her art, so her current income could then
be compared to the income requirements for affordable artist housing; for all we know, most of
her funding might have come from savings, a day job, parents, et cetera. However that might
have been, ArtCenter/South Florida moved her to one of its largest studio spaces a few days after
the Herald article was published, and her work was featured in the Walgreen’s storefront at the
busiest tourist intersection in South Florida. Ms. Valdemoro wound up the article with her ace-
in-the-hole, distinguished performance artist David Rohn, who said he supported affordable
Miami Beach artist housing as proposed because he was paying $5,500 for his housing expenses
in the City of Miami, plus $1,700 a month for workspace in Little Haiti. If we add, say, $1,500
per month of other living expenses, we come up with $8,700 a month or $104,400 per annum.
Again, no mention was made of actual income from artistic activities, nor of his wife, and
whether or not she was working, and if so, her earnings.

Hard questions were asked about loaning the Miami Beach Community Development
Association nearly $14 million for the purchase of three old hotels in the art district at peak
prices. A.C. Weinstein had specifically stated that of the total of 161 units in the 3 buildings, 40
units had been allocated for cultural arts workers as per the proposed CANDO ordinance, which
specified that, “existing units being rehabilitated in the CANDO overlay district” would be
exempt from the minimum size requirement “if 25% of the units are reserved for ‘cultural arts
workers as defined…” i.e. 161 X 25% = 40.25 = 40 rounded.

As a matter of fact, the deal on the three buildings had been made prior to the CANDO
ordinance, and they just happened to be in the art district, which allowed the propagandists to
confuse apples with oranges. On August 15, 2007, Assistant City Manager Hilda Fernandez
declared that she was unaware of any such reservation. She was later moved to emphatically and
unequivocally state that “there is currently no CANDO-specific project under development with
City funds.” Again, the three MBCDC-development properties had nothing to do with CANDO,
but still the CANDO band included the old hotel buildings in its theme song.

Today, four years later, one of those buildings, the Barclay, is still occupied, but it appears that
no improvements have been made. The dilapidated London House, which harbored mainly

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undocumented workers at exorbitant rents until just recently, appears to have fresh exterior paint
and has apparently been vacated. The residents of the Allen were put out on the street prior to the
passing of the CANDO ordinance; allegations were made at the time that the closure was
pursuant to the general cooperation of City officials with certain Miami Beach landlords who
anticipated that they could sell their properties for windfall capital gains once low-income
lessees were evicted as part of the gentrification process. Improvement of the Allen has
proceeded over the last four years at snail’s pace via a handful of workers; that old building, by
the way, sits on a corner of the blighted block controlled by developer Ron Bloomberg, who was
on the mayor’s CANDO committee; the contract on that corner property had a clause that would
have allowed it to be handed over to a private developer within 24 months – we do not know at
this writing if that time period has been extended.

Building on Blighted CANDO block optioned by Ron Bloomberg (Miami Mirror (2011)

Now there has never been any CANDO-specific project under development. Will there ever be
such a development? Will struggling artists and other cultural arts workers ever qualify for
affordable housing in South Beach’s newly gentrified art district? Darwin Leon, for one, thought
he would get one of those 40 non-existent units, and an artist’s residency at ArtCenter/South
Florida; once the truth became clear, he packed up and moved away, and is so embittered that he
does not want to think about or speak of his South Beach CANDO experience.

Mr. Leon believed that ArtCenter/South Florida on chic Lincoln Road should be purchased and
converted into an international art academy. However, Mr. Walters thought the blighted block
cater-cornered from Collins Park would be a far better place to establish an international art

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center academy with a campus including parking and housing for faculty and students.
According to Miami-Dade County property records, that block, with the exception of the old
Allen Hotel under renovation, is mostly owned by G-2 Development Inc. Miami Beach
developer Ron Bloomberg had and presumably still has an option to develop the property.

At a local breakfast meeting held on January 25, 2011, Miami Beach City Manager Jorge
Gonzalez confirmed that there are currently no plans in process for the blighted block. He also
confirmed that developers have not yet applied for the incentives provided by the CANDO
ordinance.

Buildings on Blighted CANDO block optioned by Ron Bloomberg (Miami Mirror (2011)

Nearly fifteen years have fled since the Cultural Campus name and notion was conceived by
Commission Susan Gottlieb, who wanted to revitalize the downtrodden Collins Park area; its
park was populated by vagrants. Ron Bloomberg, for one, wanted to make valuable contributions
to the inevitable renaissance of the neighborhood. He and his partners already had their plans to
renovate the historic Palm Court building, and in December 1997 he discussed with city planners
his plan to build a four-story office building at 23rd Street and Park Avenue, but the city’s
principal planner said the building plans would have to be altered to locate it five feet to the
north to accommodate the approved plans for the Miami City Ballet’s new headquarters.

Mr. Bloomberg swore, and demanded to see the planner’s file. He discovered that the city was
allowing the ballet company to violate city regulations by placing the proposed new ballet
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building right up to the property line; if that were not bad enough, two affidavits in the file
falsely declared that a government agency owned two, privately owned lots which the ballet
building would extend over. He figured then and there that city officials would not hesitate to
trample on developers’ rights in order to create their desired version of the Cultural Campus. He
appealed the ruling, but that did not stop construction of the ballet center from going ahead. The
city brought an eminent domain suit against him because it desperately wanted his property to
build a 400-space parking garage designed to serve the ballet, the museum, and a planned new
library. Eventually the eminent domain suit was dropped. Efforts at compromise did not pan out.

As a consequence of the legal wrangling, reported the Miami New Times on April 15, 1999 (‘A
legal battle between developer Ron Bloomberg and Beach officials over the fate of the city’s
cultural campus has both sides fuming’), “commissioners and staffers have pegged him as
greedy, obnoxious, litigious, and obstinate; a fly in the ointment, the guy who wants to kill the
cultural campus.”

Since then the Bass Museum of Art has been augmented with a huge box structure stuck onto
one end of its historical Art Deco structure. The spacious new Miami Ballet City Building is a
godsend to the dance community. A wonderful new regional library graces the block across the
street. Collins Park has been beautified. And the area is called CANDO instead of Cultural
Campus. There is no new parking garage at this writing; however, relations have radically
warmed between Ron Bloomberg and the City of Miami Beach: subjection to the resolution of
an underlying title issue, the city will purchase his interest in the property at 23rd Street and Park
Avenue build a 400-space parking garage on it!

Building on Blighted CANDO block optioned by Ron Bloomberg (Miami Mirror (2011)

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There is one thing that we can never get enough of: parking. Once the world is paved over, we
may all be singing Joni Mitchell’s song:

“They paved paradise/And put up a parking lot/With a pink hotel, a boutique/And a swinging hot
spot/Don't it always seem to go/That you don't know what you've got/Till it's gone/They paved
paradise/And put up a parking lot.”

David Arthur Walters contacted Ron Bloomberg in 2007 and asked him for an interview, noting
that he had been characterized as in the past as a “cultural-arts killer,” but was currently known
as “a CANDO man.”

“I don’t want to dig up a lot of dirt from the past,” he said. “That would do no good now that
things are going in a positive direction. The long and short of it is that I came down here ten
years ago. My means were limited so I approached city planners for their advice as to what
promising properties might be obtained on reasonable terms for development. I was told that the
government planned to use its power of eminent domain to take blighted properties around
Collins Park and use public redevelopment funds to engage private developers as partners to
develop the incipient cultural arts district.

“I acted accordingly, and obtained the rights to certain properties with the understanding that I
would be one of those partners. However, city officials in power at the time favored other private
partners, and the development proceeded to infringe on my property rights. I had no choice but to
defend those rights in court.

“As a result I was lampooned in the press as a greedy developer who wanted to kill the cultural
arts development in the district before it got off the ground. Nothing could have been farther
from the truth. I have always been in favor of cultural arts development in the district, and I have
positive ideas about the subject.

“Now that development in the district is going in a positive direction, I want to stay positive. It
would be a complete waste of time to dredge up everything that has passed under the bridge as
long as the city is fair.

“You can ask city officials about me, and I believe you will get positive reports. I am not the
man I was made out to be in the past.”

Mr. Bloomberg declined to discuss with Mr. Walters the terms of his agreement with the owner
of the blighted block, G-2 Development Inc., and noted that he had no stock in the corporation.
Nor would he disclose his plans for the block. He stated that the costs to carry it were very
expensive. He did offer to be interviewed at length provided that the publisher of the interview
would refrain from editorializing or editing the interview to spin the facts against him. The editor
of the Sunpost, a local newspaper, refused to make the provision, so Mr. Walters dropped the
project.

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Building on Blighted CANDO block optioned by Ron Bloomberg (Miami Mirror (2011)

The Miami Mirror interviewed Ray Breslin, president of the Collins Park Neighborhood
Association, on the CANDO subject. Mr. Breslin, a graduate of the city’s first Leadership
Academy in 2002, and founder of the CANDO Arts Co-op, is a community activist well known
for his support of all the non-profit arts organizations in the Collins Park Neighborhood.

“We need to focus more on the arts and less on the beach,” he said. “All of Florida is a beach.
Also I do not like people making decisions about my neighborhood when they haven't even been
here. Example being when they wanted to build a new 23rd Street Bridge cutting off a street in
our neighborhood to move traffic faster. I don't know what they were thinking but I got the
commission to kill it and save six million dollars.”

When asked about CANDO, he said it does not seem to be thriving. The City did not or does not
offer enough incentives to make a difference, and that no one has applied for the incentive
because it was not worth anything to developers. He said the mayor’s CANDO committee was
dissolved in January 2009 by Mayor Matti Bower, who felt the committee had run its course and
done what it set out to do.

“They created a district with no real or tangible incentives and certainly no financial backing. It
was a David Dermer pipe dream.”

When asked what CANDO has specifically done for artists, he said, “Nothing! Ron Bloomberg
has donated space for the CANDO Arts Co-op at his Palm Court Building, but there is no other
sign of CANDO other than a few banners.”

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He noted that there is a legal battle going on, between the owner of the blighted block on which
Ron Bloomberg has an option, and the bank that pulled financing on the property roughly eight
years ago when there were plans to develop a Marriot Courtyard.

As for the notion that the blighted property might be used to develop an international art
academy: he said, referring to the plans to replace Miami Beach’s current Convention Center and
add a sizable hotel, “I'd personally like to see the Convention Center Hotel go there instead of in
place of the Jackie Gleason Theatre.”

One may wonder what good there can be in digging up the dirt about CANDO and rehashing
former Mayor David Dermer’s pipe dream. After all has been said in done, the question remains:
What good can CANDO do? The good struck will be golden for some people; the future of the
blighted block is inevitable, and that future is very bright in monetary terms. That much is
obvious to people who have been around for awhile. Remember, we are talking about artéstaté
here; hopefully, cultural workers including A.C.’s writers, the “bullshit artists”, will get their fair
share for pointing out the opportunity to potential investors. Ron Bloomberg will no doubt be
glad to field their calls.

Struggling Cando Artist by Darwin Leon

www.darwinleon.com

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