Rumors, lots of rumors

There are so many rumors that go around town, I guess if you mix and match a few, some of it can be true. I get emails all day long with conspiracy theories. I just thought it would be interesting to post some of them here. If any of it is true, it would be nice for someone to send the actual proof of these theories.

The word around town about the Expo Center is that the reason they want to throw Burn Notice out and knock it down and turn it into a park is to accommodate the new Grove Grand Bay condo that is going in across the street. The rumor is that the folks there are getting their own private park, like Gramercy Park in New York, where only residents get a key.

I don't see this because by the time the condo is built there is more than enough time to install the park. Ground hasn't even been broke yet, the old Grand Bay Hotel is still standing. So if that was the case, there would be time for Burn Notice to film the seventh season and be gone by the time the park is needed for the Grand Bay condo across the street.

Another rumor is that this is to be the new Bayside-type site. That the RFP's were thrown out at Scotty's and the Chart House because the third place winner for the project was to win the whole deal and eventually build a huge Bayside complex there. But since it didn't work out like that, everything was thrown out to accommodate those that were promised the land. The way they got neighbors on their side was to start a rumor about building condo's on the site, which would block the existing views of the condos across the street. To get the condo owners on their side, they were told, "OK, we won't put in a condo, how about a two story mall?" And to protect their precious view of Sailboat Bay, the condo dwellers agreed to not fight the Bayside-type complex.

Another rumor is that the whole reason for the Coconut Grove tree project, which is part of the streetscape project is to make all that money using the Silva Cell System, which would cost $7500 per tree, so the more trees that are replaced, the more Silva Cells go in and the more money is made.

So many of these things like the Expo Center park and the Silva Cell system are thought to be political payback for favors, like the new bike path in Kennedy Park was to have been.

This could all be true, but most likely it's all just a bunch of rumors. I mean, why not do all this all over the district or City if it's all a corrupt money-making scheme? Why not put Silva Cells around all the new Midtown projects or the new Brickell parks or put the recycled bike path material in the new parks? Why not offer private parks to all the new condos going up downtown?

As for the Coconut Grove Playhouse, I got this email the other day: "Like many other people and numerous other real-estate-related projects reaching from south Florida to northern Canada, the citizens of Miami will be robbed of the venerable Coconut Grove Playhouse and the historic Stirrup house across the street because these pillars of Miami history and culture are targeted by condo marauders who have already plundered valuable real estate once belonging to others, and succeeded in filling their bags of loot made possible with lies, theft, bribery, and immoral acts."

Is the Playhouse to become a condo now?

It all seems to be just a Coconut Grove thing. Strange as it may seem, the Grove is some sort of guinea pig for all these new techniques. Maybe we're just on the cutting edge of things and we just don't know it!