2022-05-12
Hello Key Biscayne!
If you’re lucky enough that you haven’t left the island in a while, you may not have noticed that there’s construction on Crandon on the way out. For those of you that have had to deal with it every day, get used to it. It’s FPL and they’re doing something with the lines under the road. The project is going to take six months(!).
Poaching sea turtle eggs.
There’s only seven or eight more mentions of traffic in this issue, we swear.
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Your lowly editor and the rest of the motley crew that run the 4th of July parade are throwing a party at the Beach Club on Friday, June 3rd, and you're invited. Live band, all food and drink included. First 30 tickets sold are about twenty bucks cheaper so get in quick! |
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Promote your own thing. |
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News you can lose
In the wet The Village wants to change how stormwater fees (the cost to pay for rain to go away) are calculated. Currently it’s done as a kind of even split across the island. Houses pay 50% more than apartments because they’re houses. They wanted a better system for measuring, so they hired some expert from out of town and they came up with a different proposal: however many covered square feet you have, we make a calculation and you pay that.
Now it turns out that houses would end up paying so much more and apartments so much less that they don’t like the expert’s opinion. Well, that’s not completely true: the apartment people definitely like the expert’s opinion.
Big dreams The Strategic Vision Planning Board, tasked with making plans for a future Key where everything is nicer, recently showed off some of their efforts. Among them is a favorite of this publication: the idea of ripping out the Crandon/Harbor intersection and replacing it with a giant roundabout. Would it work? Who knows. But what we have doesn’t work either so we may as well try it.
The board then went on to propose a bunch of ideas like turning the land behind the Presbytarian church into a bayfront park, turning L’Esplenade into an apartment building, and combining all the shopping centers on Crandon into one giant building where you could walk on the roof all the way from one side of the island to anoth–wait what? Oh no, none of this is ever going to happen. 🙃
The little things
Good thing they put the cone out, if not we wouldn't have seen the truck.
This one was brought to our attention by a reader (thanks Yesleni!). Many mornings on Harbor Drive right in front of the old Oasis, trucks will park in the middle of the road to unload goods destined for surrounding businesses. Of course they’re doing this at what is already peak traffic time so it compounds the problem further.
It makes you wonder what these trucks would do if there was a proper median there and they couldn’t block the road. Would they try and go into the mall parking lot? Would they send a smaller truck? Would business owners make an effort and talk to the Village and the owners of the neighboring empty entrance lot where half a dozen trucks could easily fit and have great access to the neighboring businesses without inconveniencing half the island every morning? We may never know as they can just keep parking in the middle of the road for now.
Calendar
Around Town
- Saturday 5/14
- 🚙 It's not F1 but it's cars on the key (Crossbridge Church parking lot)
- 🚤 Take a little tour of the bay with a guide who tells you what's up while giving you beers (Crandon Marina)
Last week's sales
| Location | SQFT | Rooms | Prev | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| KC IV 218 | 1820 | 3/2.5 | '12 $790k | $1.53m |
| KC IV 454 | 1600 | 3/2 | '03 $365k | $1.45m |
| 730 Myrtlewood | 3359 | 4/3.5 | '91 $225k | $3.32m |
| KC II 425 | 1532 | 2/2 | '98 $235k | $1.05m |
| Grapetree 119 | 1404 | 2/2.5 | '97 $220k | $1.2m |
| Oceana 501S | 3791 | 4/6.5 | '14 $4.88m | $8.8m |
| Casa del Mar L4 | 930 | 1/1 | '74 $73k | $570k |
| Ambassador 708 | 1311 | 2/2 | '16 $516k | $689k |
| KC II 638 | 2605 | 3/3 | '11 $1.88m | $3.45m |
| KC II 638 | 1546 | 2/2 | '14 $915k | $1.29m |
| KC III 505 | 1821 | 2/2 | '92 $340k | $1.15m |
| Casa del Mar 24G | 1875 | 2/2 | '91 $131k | $1.82m |
| Oceana 1103N | 3005 | 3/4.5 | '14 $5.1m | $6.6m |
| Ocean Ln Plza 509 | 1460 | 2/2 | '99 $245k | $715k |
| CC East 1201 | 1930 | 3/2 | '00 $780k | $3.6m |
| KC I 624 | 1531 | 2/2 | '99 $285k | $1.1m |
| 251 Galen 216 | 1109 | 2/2 | '98 $146k | $520k |
| CC East 812 | 1260 | 2/2 | '20 $700k | $1.31m |
| 584 Fernwood | 1988 | 4/3 | '14 $1.56m | $2.43m |
| KC IV 175 | 2090 | 3/3 | '12 $660k | $1.25m |
| KC II 920 | 1485 | 2/2 | '83 $210k | $1.16m |
| Ritz 814 | 354 | 1/1 | '20 $435k | $590k |
| 300 Galen Dr 406 | 1068 | 2/2 | '01 $190k | $565k |
| Sands 2L | 1772 | 3/3 | '15 $1.42m | $1.66m |
| KC II 1029 | 1532 | 2/2 | '19 $700k | $905k |
| 815 Harbor Dr | 1915 | 4/3 | '00 $515k | $2.44m |
Xoxo
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Questions, comments, tips, or to build our own scale model of an ideal island together 🧱, write to hi@tropicalrag.com.
Went to the F1 last week thanks to a generous key rat. Anyone else make it? Let’s get some fans together for next year. 🏁
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