More people than ever live in downtown Miami
MIAMI — When Ana Grimaldi and her husband, Lucio, relocated from New York City to Miami six years ago, the couple already had a young son. But instead of a family-friendly suburb, the pair opted to settle in Brickell, mostly to be close to Lucio’s workplace.
Today, the couple now has two sons, ages 3 and 8 — and they still live in the same Brickell Key high-rise.
“When we first moved here, we felt like pioneers, because Brickell was definitely not family-oriented,” said Grimaldi, 39. “Back then, this was primarily a financial business district. But all that has changed drastically. There are more places and events for children. A lot of the new buildings include preschools. It’s a safe environment for kids, which is very important to a parent. And they get to grow up in an urban neighborhood that has the feeling of a community.”
The idea of raising a family in the downtown urban core — with its highrise living, stop-and-go traffic and adultoriented entertainment such as nightclubs and restaurants — might have seemed nutty as recently as a decade ago. But a new analysis of Greater Downtown Miami demographics by the Miami Downtown Development Authority, which uses data from the U.S. Census, shows the population in Greater Downtown Miami has hit an all-time high of 92,235 — a 65 percent jump from 2000-2010 and another 38 percent increase from 2010-2018.
The number is projected to swell another 19 percent by 2021, with the total population in Greater Downtown Miami expected to reach 109,617. By comparison, the downtown area populations in similarly sized cities range from 26,850 in Atlanta to 48,000 in Dallas to 80,000 in Denver.
Young professionals between the ages of 25-44 are the most populous group in downtown Miami, comprising 45 percent of dwellers. But the number of children aged 14 and under has grown 53 percent since 2010, to a current total of 11,484 residents.
The number of family households — defined as people related by birth, adoption or marriage — has also spiked 42 percent, to 47,958.
“Ten years ago, we were focused on building downtown Miami as a global brand,” said Christina Crespi, acting director of the Miami DDA. “Now we’re focused on serving the people who live here. A lot of millennials have grown up and now have kids. We’re creating a sense of community so people who live in downtown don’t want to leave.”
A higher number of children translates into a greater demand for schools. Although there are plenty of elementary and middle schools with space to accommodate hundreds of students throughout the Greater Downtown area, the need for a high school will intensify in the next few years. The Mater Academy charter school network has proposed a charter school, to be called Brickell Preparatory Academy, that would be built on Southwest Second Avenue and 17th Road and would ultimately serve grades K-12.
The Greater Downtown Miami area comprises 3.8 square miles east of I-95, west of Biscayne Bay, south of I-195 and north of the Rickenbacker Causeway. It is made up of seven neighborhoods: Brickell, Midtown, Edgewater, Wynwood, Historic Overtown, and the Central Business and Arts & Entertainment districts. According to 2017 fourthquarter figures from the DDA, the average rental for a condo in Greater Downtown Miami was $2,525, a four percent drop from 2016.