Bohemian or Business: Identities Collide in Miami’s Coconut Grove

Square Feet The city’s development boom has finally caught up to a lush haven of shade trees and cafes. Some worry the neighborhood growth is too fast. With its profusion of parks and shade trees, Coconut Grove is celebrated for being one of the greenest parts of sun-baked Miami. It has some of the best schools in the city, drawing students from all over the metropolitan area.

And it has long been a magnet for artists, writers and musicians who have given the neighborhood a bohemian vibe. But lately, Coconut Grove has become known for yet another thing: a real estate boom. The area did not experience much of the pre-recession wave of development that swept other Miami neighborhoods. But now, luxury residential towers by renowned modernist architects have been rising in Coconut Grove along Biscayne Bay, a snazzy hotel recently opened, and a well-known shopping center is getting a makeover.

And boutique office buildings are going up, attracting brand-name tenants in the tech, finance and creative industries. The office square footage is a small fraction of that of nearby Brickell or downtown Miami, but the development is occurring in an area under six square miles, much of it zoned for low- and midrise construction. The fast pace of growth and gentrification is pushing out longtime residents. And it is raising a question about the neighborhood’s identity: Can the Grove grow without losing its groove?

“We’re at a crossroads,” said Ken Russell, a city commissioner who also heads the board of the Coconut Grove Business Improvement District. Settled in the early 19th century, Coconut Grove has some of the oldest and grandest single-family homes in Miami. One of the best-known estates, Vizcaya, has been converted into a museum and gardens. Much of the land on which the city was built was clear cut for development, but the Grove retained its subtropical lushness.

By the 1960s, it was a hippy haven, South Florida’s answer to New York’s Greenwich Village and San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district. A whiff of that anti-establishment attitude still lingers. It says something about the neighborhood that four years ago, the person elected commissioner of the district that encompasses it was Mr. Russell, a Grove native whose background was in yo-yo and paddleboard sales.