Commercial
A footbridge throughout Biscayne Boulevard from Brightline’s rail station in Aventura to land owned by retail large Aventura Mall that was to have opened by Thanksgiving 2024 “in time for the vacation rush on the mall” as an alternative is due by Thanksgiving 2025.
Particulars aren’t last, Jose Gonzalez, senior vp of Brightline proprietor Florida East Coast Industries, advised the Residents’ Impartial Transportation Belief in December. He mentioned he’ll present the belief in January how “passengers who will likely be on Brightline will have the ability to go throughout to the mall.”
However he assured the belief that Brightline lastly has a web site the place the bridge that to this point has been a bridge to nowhere can find yourself touchdown.
“I’m glad to report that they really had a cope with the county lawyer and the Division of Transportation and Public Works and Commissioner [Eileen] Higgins, who pushed this and obtained actual inventive how one can push it, and the county obtained an easement to land the bridge on the east aspect” of the Aventura station, Mr. Gonzalez advised the belief. “That touchdown will likely be there completely.”
Again in February, Brian Kronberg, the rail line’s senior vp of improvement, had advised the belief that “the bridge is prepared. We’re simply ensuring that we’ve obtained a spot to place the bridge.” Now, that finish of the bridge from the station appears assured.
The goal, Mr. Kronberg mentioned in February, was to permit rail passengers and others to cross busy Biscayne Boulevard on foot and attain Aventura Mall, which yearly has 28 million guests. The corporate wanted a use and occupancy settlement for an aerial easement for the bridge over the boulevard to make that occur. On the similar time, Brightline had been negotiating a lease for the purpose the place the bridge will discharge customers onto property owned by the mail and its developer Turnberry.
This, as Mr. Gonzalez recounted in December, is simply the most recent hiccup in opening the bridge.
When planning the Aventura station that Brightline developed utilizing funds overseen by the transportation belief, Mr. Gonzalez mentioned, mall proprietor Turnberry had a mission to attach the bridge to an workplace constructing that it deliberate to develop on the location however in the end didn’t.
“It will have been good,” he mentioned, however “they pulled it out. Every part else obtained scrapped. In order that was a part of the delay.”
When the station was constructed and accomplished in October 2022, the bridge was constructed and sitting within the station parking zone, Mr. Gonzalez advised the belief. The builders had it manufactured “and it was sitting there ready for it to land.”
Now {that a} touchdown web site has been agreed to, nonetheless, the job isn’t completed. A water major and drainage are in the best way and have to be moved, “however our aim is to have that bridge up by Thanksgiving.”
As soon as the bridge is up with stairs to the touchdown web site, a walkway will go to the county transit hub on the Aventura Mall to offer connectivity “and passengers who will likely be on Brightline will have the ability to go throughout to the mall.”
The bridge gained’t hook up with the mammoth mall, Mr. Kronberg famous in October 2023, and Brightline passengers will want “to cross a number of streets to get into both the county bus facility or the doorway of the mall.”
In October 2019, the transportation belief permitted the property acquisition and improvement settlement between the county and Brightline and $76.7 million in transportation surtaxes to develop the station. Beneath the settlement, the county obtained $4 million from the Metropolis of Aventura to develop the east aspect bridge that’s nonetheless within the works.
A direct connection to Aventura Mall at 19501 Biscayne Blvd. has very important implications. The mall is Florida’s largest and third within the nation in sq. toes, with 350 shops and eating places.