At 20, Miami Gardens continues to evolve
Development has spurred economic growth, diversity
MIAMI GARDENS — When Carleena Scott reminisces about growing up near where Hard Rock Stadium now sits, she thinks of the barbeque pit her family frequently patronized and the man selling collard greens standing on a street corner.
“We were very much underdeveloped,” she says, remembering passing along Northwest 183rd Street and seeing nothing but open fields. “There was a lot of open land when it was Carol City.”
The sprawling area that was once unincorporated Dade County is now Miami Gardens, a city celebrating 20 years. And while it bears similarities to Carol City — Black-owned businesses and middle-class Black families — Miami Gardens has transformed with development.
Scott, 47, embraces the change. “I’m like, OK, what are they getting ready to build here now? And I honestly will keep riding that street to see it come alive,” she said.
Since it became Miami Gardens, the city has seen a vast transformation with strip malls containing retailers such as Foot Locker, Old Navy and Starbucks, major big-box stores including Walmart, and supermarket chain Aldi.
The city’s population of 110,867 is 66.8% Black, according to recent U.S. Census data, making Miami Gardens the largest majority-Black city in Florida. Newcomers are bringing more diversity: In 2010, there were 2,408 residents who identified as two or more races, according to American Community Survey data from the U.S. Census. In 2020, that number rose to more than 20,000.
As the city turns 20, Mayor Rodney Harris envisions a Miami Gardens that caters to longtime residents and tourists with developments such as two hotels planned along the city’s main thoroughfare, a performing arts center and a culinary arts institute.
“I think we need a nice hotel in Miami Gardens. I’m all for change,” Scott said, but she also hopes the city can maintain the fabric of the community while
ensuring it grows for future residents and visitors.
“I know this is a bedroom community, but in order for us to survive, we’re going to have to do development in order for the city to continue to thrive and be a city that is self-sustainable,” Harris said in an interview with the Miami Herald.
Harris is the third mayor of Miami Gardens and has inherited a city that has grown economically in part due to the Miami Dolphins’ stadium built in 1987 — a decision that remains a contentious issue among some residents.
He is hoping that residents will support future growth and development. “We have our residents stay active and be involved — not necessarily with the decision-making — but they give their input and talk about some of the things they want to see coming into the community.”
Carol City memories
Before it was Miami Gardens, it was Carol City, an unincorporated neighborhood with a population of roughly 60,000 in what was then Dade County.
Gena Grant’s family moved to Carol City in 1977. “They still were burning crosses at Scott Park, in the areas we frequent now,” she said her mother told her in recounting their move to the area. Cross burnings were done by the Ku Klux Klan as a way to threaten Black communities.
But even then, Carol City was a place in transition. The city was a middle-class enclave with modest development and a diverse population: 48% of residents were Black, 33% were Latino and 19% were white, the Miami Herald reported in November 1978.
Harris said Carol City was the place to be. “I would come out here all the time. We would do our Easter egg hunts out here,” he fondly recalled. “I would visit people here in their homes in the Carol City area, and when I was a young man, I always said that when I got to be grown, that I was gonna buy me a house in Carol City. So back in 1997, I was fortunate enough to purchase a home here before they incorporated.”
Harris bought his home following initial efforts to incorporate the area into what would have been called Destiny. “We were trying to create and control our own destiny,” said former Miami-Dade County Commissioner Betty Ferguson, who helped spearhead the charge to create Miami Gardens.
Ferguson’s family has lived in the area since 1949 and she has seen the region transform from a predominantly Black tight-knit community to a budding tourist destination. She described a neighborhood that consisted of military veterans in the Bunche Park area and little development.
“You had lots of groves, cow pastures, basically unincorporated and undeveloped areas,” she said. “When my family first moved into the area, there were no public schools. We had to be bused out of the area.” By the time she was in the first grade, Bunche Park Elementary School had been built. “So, I was in the first firstgrade class.”
The construction of what was then called Joe Robbie Stadium changed the area’s landscape and caused a rift between millionaire and Dolphins owner Joe Robbie, the county and Black residents who lived in close proximity.
Ferguson said residents felt ignored when the decision was made to put a stadium in a predominantly Black neighborhood.
She recalled how Black families in the Overtown neighborhood were displaced when I-95 was built. For Ferguson, a stadium built in another predominantly Black neighborhood, where former Overtown residents had moved to, was a reminder of the displacement of those Black families.
“We had no power, but they didn’t even have the courtesy to say ‘this is what we’re planning. We just want you to know what’s going on,’” she said. “Just no discussion whatsoever.”
The stadium is home to the Miami Dolphins, the city’s premier musical event Jazz in The Gardens, the Miami Open tennis tournament, and the University of Miami football team. The Miami Marlins played there until their current stadium, loanDepot Park, opened in Little Havana in 2012. More recently it has become the site for the Formula One Miami Grand Prix.
Becoming Miami Gardens
Conversations about incorporating grew as residents complained of services such as policing, park improvements, and roadwork not being met.
Ferguson said she and other residents wondered why other cities, such as Coral Gables, were receiving better services than they were. “We figured the municipalities control how their dollars are spent, same tax dollars, but they control how they are spent and how much is being spent for beautification,” she said.
Residents wanted to have a say in the decisions made for their neighborhoods.
“It was a matter of watching other areas control their tax dollars a little bit better, and we were just left to take whatever they dished out,” Ferguson said.
The city’s first mayor, Shirley Gibson, said many residents were convinced they would not be able to turn the area into a recognized municipality, in part because they were told so.
“You know, a lot of people were concerned that we would not be successful because the county said we were too poor to be our own city,” she said. “So when your government tells you that it resonates, and so we had to try to overcome that.”
The first incorporation vote failed.
U.S. Rep Frederica Wilson was a principal at Skyway
Elementary School, which is now named after her, when the city was trying to incorporate. “People were disappointed. They were destroyed because they didn’t want to share what they called a bedroom community with the sports arena,” she said.
Gibson remained determined. “We had a lot of rectifying and convincing to do before we could get the city,” she said.
Conversations to become a city reignited in 2002. This time, Gibson said they built more support by going to other cities that were also attempting to incorporate and those that had done it more recently.
“We all were very supportive of each other because we really basically were dealing with the same kind of feedback and the same kind of resistance from Miami-Dade County,” she said.
Miami Gardens incorporated as a city on May 13, 2003.
Growing the Gardens
If becoming Miami Gardens hinged on creating stability and reputation, then maintaining the city would focus on growth and development.
The office of Oliver Gilbert, Miami Gardens’ second mayor and Miami-Dade County District 1 commissioner, sits in the heart of the city he helped develop.
Gilbert said he used to have to go north to Pembroke Pines or east to Hollywood or Fort Lauderdale because “restaurants didn’t really exist in this area and shops didn’t exist in this area in a meaningful way.”
Developing the area meant tearing down the Carol Mart flea market and making way for a strip mall with businesses and retail stores.
A massive mixed-use development that will be known as Miami Gardens City Center is planned on a 35-acre property next to City Hall and police headquarters, and near Hard Rock Stadium.
Developers hope to break ground on the project in late summer or early fall with an expected completion date of 2025, just a year shy of when the 2026 FIFA World Cup will be held at Hard Rock Stadium.