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Done right, Flagler Street makeover could revive the heart of downtown Miami | Opinion

To grasp its importance, Google “Flagler Street” and you’ll find that the thoroughfare is the latitudinal baseline of Miami-Dade’s traffic grid, dividing Greater Miami into north and south.

You also will find out that it is named after one of Miami’s most influential pioneers, industrialist Henry Flagler, whose famed railroad ended a leg on Flagler Street in downtown Miami.

Flagler Street is Miami’s most famous corridor and a touchstone to the city’s beginnings and growth. Yet it’s been foundering for years from neglect and abandonment. That’s about to be addressed, and it’s about time.

The street’s first and best-known business section in downtown Miami, lined with aging buildings with, too often, empty storefronts, is getting a makeover. Finally.

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This week, an almost three-year, $10 million project is being launched to completely overhaul the street from Biscayne Boulevard to the east to the Dade County Courthouse to the west. The plan is to recreate, with a contemporary spin, the bustling streetscape that once made Flagler an indispensable destination for locals and visitors. This must include being more pedestrian-friendly than it has been for decades.

Miami City Commissioner Manolo Reyes, chair of the Downtown Development Authority, admits Flagler Street may never return to its full-on glory years, as big stores such as Macy’s have exited, but it still has life and charm that can be polished up.

“I don’t think retail will return as it used to when South American tourists would leave Flagler stores with suitcases full of merchandise, but the area is not done,” Reyes told the Editorial Board. We agree. Miami, where people want to be and are arriving from across the country — and around the world — to be a part of its dynamism, can no longer allow its main thoroughfare to lie comatose. Other cities understand this. A faded Lincoln Road in Miami Beach was revived ages ago, with great success (and some challenges.) Coral Gables is looking for the right mix of robust commerce and street-level preciousness.

Reyes has taken a special interest in the project and, more important, says he is making sure Flagler’s businesses, trying to bounce back from the ravages of the pandemic, are not strangled by unending construction at their door. Many business owners, he said, are concerned that the construction will be a death knell for their stores.

“I’ve talked to them and I told them I have insisted that all business is accessible during the construction. Sidewalks will be open to pedestrians, and there will be sidewalks along the way people can use. I’m going to keep an eye that that is the case myself.” Good thing.

A bitter lesson was learned during a street revitalization project of a section of Southwest Eighth Street, when many businesses shut down when construction blocked entry. That can’t happen on Flagler Street, where businesses and restaurants are trying to survive.

Flagler Street’s decline is not unique. It started as the center of downtown. All of Miami’s popular “ 5 & Dime” stores were located on Flagler Street. Burdines was packed. There were movie theaters up and down the street. Then, in the 1950s, people began to move to the suburbs. Malls eventually ruled. Flagler’s decline was slow, but steady.

Done right, Flagler Street can be the destination it once was — and that should be in the future, if downtown is going to thrive.