SMART GROWTH COMES TO HIALEAH Part 3

SMART GROWTH COMES TO HIALEAH, FLA

Toward the end of his 24 years in office as mayor, Martinez spearheaded a downtown plan that created town houses, condominiums, mixed use and a parking garage to take the place of ugly surface lots.

He and the city council also backed a plan to convert the city’s main drag – Palm Avenue -- from one-way to two-way traffic. The new Palm Avenue also has street trees, traffic calming devices, wider sidewalks and a general atmosphere that encourages pedestrian activity.

To accommodate people who want to build new houses and to add to the city’s tax base, Hialeah’s leaders worked to annex a three-square-mile area that will be home to 4,000-plus residential units, two town centers, parks, light industry and schools during a 15-year build-out that will add population to Florida’s fifth largest city.

“We want to create a new town using the new urbanism,” Martinez said of the huge area recently annexed to his city. “We want to create an area where people can walk to things. In sprawled suburban development, you forget who your neighbors are, you know? Everything is about getting in the car. We wanted to create a more humane city, a place where people could walk to a park and get to know their neighbors.”
“We have to create an area that is appealing to young professionals. In Hialeah, a lot of our young people were moving out. A lot of our professionals went elsewhere to build their dream homes,” he continued. “Now we are creating a place where people can stay in Hialeah -- where they can live, work and play.”

Martinez said the annexation area, he has dubbed it Hialeah Heights, will undergo a transformation even more amazing than the downtown Hialeah revitalization that has seen vacant lots turned into townhouses, condominiums and mixed use infill development.

“We are going to take a place that is a dumping ground for trash and abandoned cars – and a place of rock quarries – and turn it into a place with all varieties of housing, all kinds of different architecture, two town centers to shop and a major park,” Martinez beamed. “We are going to create a new town that will serve as a model for other cities in Florida and the nation.”