Redevelopment plan approved for Dadeland Mall

Dadeland Mall in the Miami suburb of Kendall is not about to be boarded up. Business is good, and the mall and its surroundings enjoy status as a “regional activity center.” But in the last 30 years, a chaotic suburban landscape of piecemeal development and expressways has risen around Dadeland. The rapid growth has left Kendall without a discernable center, and that’s why the mall has now become the heart of an ambitious plan to create a downtown Kendall with an urban, pedestrian-oriented identity. Since 1995, the Kendall Council of ChamberSOUTH has worked with local government officials, property owners, and residents to find a way to redirect the area’s growth potential from random sprawl to planned development. Miami planning firms Dover Kohl & Partners and Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co. led a charrette on downtown Kendall in the summer of 1998, and the resulting plan laid out possible short-term and long-term projects (see aerial view on page 1). Among the proposed initial projects are a town square surrounded by buildings at what is today the main entrance to the mall, the creation of a green at the intersection of two major roads to give Kendall a dramatic entrance point, as well as new, mixed-use buildings across from the mall. Conditions for pedestrians would be enhanced by the construction of sidewalks shaded by colonnades, arcades, or trees and by adding new streets that absorb traffic and improve pedestrian connectivity. In the long term, 35 years in the future, Dadeland Mall would be surrounded by multistory buildings, and a drainage ditch behind the mall could be transformed into a canal lined with waterfront restaurants and retail on one side and new residential neighborhoods on the other. The tool to turn this vision into reality is a new overlay zoning ordinance which was approved by the Miami-Dade Board of County Commissioners on December 16. The ordinance asks for buildings to be built to the streets, for garages lined with apartments, offices, and shops to replace surface parking, and it designates areas for open space in squares and parks. To protect the overall vision of the plan, the ordinance specifies areas where no variances will be allowed. The code for downtown Kendall takes a new approach to building height, regulating it by the number of stories rather than by feet. This allows builders greater latitude in varying ceiling heights and dissuades developers from cramming in as many floors as possible. The height limits range from 25 stories for buildings near transit stops to 7 stories for structures on the edge of downtown.