‘Shameful’ fenced lot at entrance to Frost Science, PAMM must go, Jorge Pérez says
Billionaire developer and philanthropist Jorge Pérez, who has given tens of millions in gifts — as well as his name — to the Pérez Art Museum Miami, is not at all happy about the shabby vacant lot that has long marked the strangely inconspicuous entryway to Miami-Dade’s premier visual arts institution and its equally eminent neighbor, the Frost Museum of Science.
In fact, he calls it “shameful.”
The half-acre lot could not occupy a more prominent spot. It sits directly in front of the Frost on Biscayne Boulevard, making it the first thing most visitors see as they enter the otherwise lushly landscaped section of Maurice A. Ferré Park, home to the two museums supported by hundreds of millions in tax dollars.
And what a sight it is: gravel, dirt and weeds surrounded by a rickety, partly collapsing chain-link fence and a fading, once-colorful textile wrap emblazoned with “Art + Science Museums” in large block letters. On a recent weekday, two contractors’ vans and someone’s black Cadillac sat in the lot, which serves as informal utility parking for the Frost.
The lot was used for staging of materials and equipment during construction of the museums, which took several years. All work was completed in late 2018.
But the lot remains as is because the Frost, which controls and is responsible for the property under a lease agreement with the city of Miami, has been unable to move on plans to improve it. The Frost’s CEO blames permitting, safety and financial issues exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The lot has been the subject of off-and-on discussions between the two institutions, but an increasingly frustrated Pérez says its unsightly condition has persisted for too long. Now he’s gone public with the complaint and is offering to personally foot half the bill to beautify the spot if the Frost will cover the other half.
“This is the physical and visual entrance to the County’s largest museums, where hundreds of millions of dollars of public and private money have been spent. This front lot should provide a beautiful entry feature to the museums and also beautify Biscayne Boulevard,” Peréz, who sits on PAMM’s board, said in a statement sent to the Miami Herald in response to questions from a reporter. “It is a great disappointment that nothing has been done here in spite of continuous efforts to get all the parties‘ attention.”
Miami-Dade cultural affairs director Michael Spring, under whose oversight the museums were built, said the county has no sway over the lot. But, he added, “it’s an eyesore.”
Frank Steslow, the Frost Science president and CEO, conceded the complaints over the lot are valid. But, he said, the museum’s efforts to redo it have so far been slowed by several obstacles.
Under the original Museum Park master plan, the parcel was first supposed to hold a landscaped stormwater retention pool. After engineers figured out a different way to handle that flow, it was designated for future expansion of the Frost, Steslow said. Until that happens the museum developed a blueprint to turn the lot into a green, landscaped overflow parking lot with a permeable gravel-pavement surface, he said. No expansion plans are currently contemplated.
But the parking-lot plan, which would cost $500,000, has been stuck in permitting at the city of Miami for a year, and that’s after it took months to obtain the necessary zoning approvals first, Steslow said. In the meantime, the museum — its finances already strained after the county had to bail it out to finish construction — has lost millions in ticket sales and other revenue since the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Now it’s spending cash reserves to stay open with limited attendance, and can’t afford the project, Steslow said.
Officials at the city’s real estate management arm, which oversees the museum ground leases, did not respond to emailed requests for comment.
Just replacing the faded wrap around the fence alone would cost $30,000, he said. The last time that was done, for PAMM’s fundraising gala a year ago, the art museum paid the bill, Steslow said. Removing the construction fence and planting grass is not an option, either, he said, because the ground is highly uneven and poses a safety risk for visitors.
“Anything we do there will cost money and will have to be ripped out” when the museum is ready to build the planned parking lot, Steslow said.
And even if the Frost gets the construction permit, he noted, the work likely can’t start until the city meets an obligation to remove a massive chunk of concrete retaining wall at the north end that’s left over from the old Bicentennial Park. It was torn out about 20 years ago to make way for the museum buildings and the accompanying new park and reopened in 2014.
He acknowledged the museum has not pushed the city to move. “We haven’t been aggressive because we don’t have the funding,” he said.
Steslow said the museum has not received any formal offer for help from Pérez but is happy to discuss it. When science museum and PAMM officials last spoke about the lot in late 2019, Steslow said Frost offered to split the cost for temporary landscaping to shield the fence from Biscayne Boulevard and Museum Drive, the entry road and promenade leading to the museum’s front doors. There have been no further conversations because both institutions have been consumed in dealing with the impact of the pandemic, Steslow said.
PAMM director Franklin Sirmans and museum board chair Aaron Podhurst, a prominent Miami lawyer, were both diplomatic in brief interviews. They declined to discuss the lot in any detail.
“It’s not up to us,” Sirmans said. “We have incredible colleagues at the Frost who I’m sure are doing everything they can.”
Making things worse from Pérez’s perspective is the fact that there is no sign anywhere on the boulevard identifying the park entrance as the portal for the museums, other than directional arrows printed on the fence wrap. The entrance leads to Museum Drive, which splits to take visitors to underground parking serving both museums as well as the front doors to the Frost and PAMM. But the only permanent sign is a small one posted a good way into the drive.
The Frost name is emblazoned on the museum facade and its globe-shaped planetarium is prominently visible from the street. But PAMM, which sits on the bayfront, is indiscernible from Biscayne Boulevard, leading to occasional complaints from visitors who say they’ve had a hard time finding it.
Steslow said Frost and PAMM administrators met with city officials about a year and a half ago to discuss placing a sign on the south side of the entrance, on Ferre Park-land overseen by the Bayfront Management Trust. But nothing came of it, he said.
Perez said he’s willing to fund both improvement of the vacant lot and installation of a suitable sign on it.
“Hopefully the Frost Science would fund the other half as there would then be no public funds necessary to accomplish this,” Perez wrote. “Keeping this lot as it stands today is shameful.”
This story was originally published January 21, 2021 at 6:00 AM.