The garage, a joint effort by a local developer and world-renowned architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron, helps alleviate downtown Miami’s chronic parking problem but not without embodying the city’s somewhat characteristic extravagance.
What they produced, in early 2010, was all those things: a garage with floor heights of up to 34 feet, three times the norm; a striking internal staircase, with artwork embedded in its base; precarious looking (and feeling) ledges that rely on industrial-strength cable to hold back cars and people; and a glass cube that houses a designer clothing store, perhaps the first in the middle of a parking garage.
In a final flourish, the architects created a soaring top floor that doubles as an event space, with removable parking barriers. It can be rented for about $US12,000 to $US15,000 a night.
Parking in the lot usually costs $US4 an hour, as opposed to about a dollar an hour for municipal lots, but for many, especially the owners of luxury cars, it’s worth it. Douglas Sharon, a financial adviser, parks his grey Ferrari in the garage several times a week. “I wouldn’t even think of parking anywhere else when I’m downtown,” he told the New York Times. You know what they say – your car’s only as nice as the garage you park it in. Oh, they don’t say that? Then they should. [NYT]
Discuss
Be the first to comment on this post!