Overview

Throughout our conference I asked people to offer their perspectives on Wynnwood. It feels like an overnight success, but it’s been decades of persistence. Finally, now it has momentum.

Shops that opened up 10 years ago, have weathered the COVID crisis. Perhaps, they’re here to stay. It seems that way, I recognize many shops from my last visit, and it seems like enough new retail is getting filled at a good pace.

Wynwood benefits from its location within Miami. It’s likely to have the penultimate Brightline stop. One of the loftist claims I heard this week was to compare Wynnwood to Silicon Valley. Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, was an early promoter of block chain, crypto-currency. Still, a lot of Miami’s recent Sam Bankman Fried-related crypto angst was taken out during Art Basel

But there’s more to Miami’s FinTech story. Miami is a major international data node for global cable communications, and has established industries in various related services.

Geopolitically, Miami is wellpositioned to benefit from West Coast supply-chain disruptions. During the 2017 Trade Wars, the Long Beach Port backed up. Various industries were disrupted. At that moment, several companies saw an opportunity to advocate for a shift of sourcing upstream goods from some Asianbased companies to Central and South American based companies that would then use the Port of Miami.

We discussed sea level rise for about the duration of a high-tide. Jokes aside, no answers were given. A massive seawall was rejected on the premise that it might delay sunrises by 30 minutes. One proposed, the seawall be made of glass.