He said he wasn’t concerned about the area’s demographics.

“It’s spicy. It brings life to the old and wisdom to the young. But you have to give people a place to come, a clean, reasonably priced product. And that’s my expertise.”

Goldman Properties recently launched a joint venture with the Archon Group to buy 17 historic properties in Boston's Fort Point Channel area, to be marketed as the Boston Wharf District. Goldman also developed projects in Philadelphia and in near Wall Street, but his biggest challenge came in Miami’s scruffy warehouse district, Wynwood. As prices rose, Goldman and son Joey began buying up properties in Wynwood, which was attracting artists but remained deserted and forbidding at night.

“For me, it was its grid system,” Goldman said in a 2009 Herald story. “I love the fact that the buildings are up to the street line. The setback thing is a suburban thing — it doesn’t do it for me.”

The Goldmans opened the first full-service restaurant that year — an upscale pizzeria called Joey’s — and unveiled a permanent art installation called “Wynwood Walls,” three sprawling courtyards decorated by some of the country’s top graffiti artists.

“Wynwood Walls was very special to him and real catalyst for the neighborhood,” said Goldman’s son-in-law, Scott Srebnick.

"That is Tony’s masterpiece,” said Marlo Courtney managing director at Goldman Properties. “It’s our graffiti park, open for the world to see.”

Still, the real-estate crash slashed the value of the Goldmans’ holdings and thrust the company into what Goldman described three years ago as the “most scary” downturn he had ever seen.

David Lombardi, another leading Wynwood landholder, recalled the pressure both faced as the market soured.

“I’d have a tough day. He’d say, ‘Don’t be deterred,’ ” Lombardi said. “He told me, ‘This gentrification ain’t for the faint of heart.’ ”

In addition to his wife and children, Goldman is survived by a brother, Mark Goldman, of Buffalo, and a sister, Pam Meyers Skerker, of Glastonbury, Conn., and four grandchildren.

Services will be noon on Friday at Temple Emanu-El, 1701 Washington Avenue, Miami Beach. Private burial follows.