Parking issues are arising at the Miami Beach Botanical Garden following the passage of a city resolution on the Holocaust Memorial Learning Center, which would take 30 parking spaces of an adjacent lot, leaving only 19th Street limited parallel parking already subject to limited parking availability.

In July 2021, the city commission voted to donate a 30-space parking lot at 775 19th St. to build a 7,000-square-foot Holocaust Memorial Learning Center to complement the 51-foot-tall hand statue. Although building the learning center is “very important, parking is going to be further limited,” Commissioner Alex Fernandez said at a Public Safety and Neighborhood Quality Committee meeting last week.

Maria Hernandez, Miami Beach General Obligation, stated that the 30 lost spaces on the lot would be replaced with only 22 parallel parking spaces on 19th Street, which could not be converted to angled parking because of the heavy traffic coming and going in the area. Trucks have to adjust. Bond Director.

He said residents have expressed concern over where they park when they go to the Botanical Garden at 2000 Convention Center Drive when construction begins. “A few years ago, we realigned Convention Center Drive, we lost parking there. We also put armadillos on Meridian Avenue for bicycle protection, so, we lost a lot of parking spaces there. We’re already at a deficit.” “

Traditionally, the City Hall garage holds attendees at the Botanical Garden and Holocaust Memorial Park, said Monica Beltran, the city’s director of parking. He suggested that cities create “an engaging route” between City Hall to those destinations and make it part of the experience.

Commissioner Kristen Rosen Gonzalez suggested that the committee “carve out” the flat, green space at the entrance to the Botanical Garden, pave it, and make a 20-car surface lot.

Ms. Hernandez said the department is recommending that people be allowed to park in the 800-space helix garage above the Miami Beach Convention Center. “If there’s some way that we can get residents to go up the helix and go all the way south, they can come down an elevator that drops them out right in front of the Botanical Gardens,” she said. Told. “It’s an option.”

Ms. Hernandez said that in order to convert the flat green spaces in front of the Botanical Garden into parking lots, the city would have to redesign the entire drainage system on 19th Street. “We also have a big pump station in that lane. we are close [the Holocaust Memorial] Sculpture; We moved the giant calophyllum to the opposite corner,” she said. “It’s a major redesign.”

Commissioner Fernandez said, but the commissioners were not very receptive to staff suggestions and urged them to come up with “better recommendations to safely accommodate some additional on-street parking” for the February public safety meeting. “Because if not, we’ve taken a facility that was accessible to elderly people, people who couldn’t ride a bicycle, and we’ve made it just for a certain segment of our population. It’s the inclusivity of our entire population.” does not serve.