The troubled Paramount Bay condo building has become a symbol of Miami’s real estate misfortunes. Construction started shortly before the real estate bust, but the project went into a record-breaking $262 million foreclosure. Now completed the 47-story building sits empty and was auctioned off earlier this week. Now, the new…
The average health care bill for a family of four living in the Miami area in 2011 will be $23,362. That’s more than any other major metro area in America, and a 120.5 percent, or $3,969, more than the national average. Considering that national average for health care cost has…
One morning the executives at rapidly growing appliance superstore chain hhgregg woke up and realized that their name was really stupid they didn’t have any stores in South Florida. Rather than quietly work their way into the market, the company has decided to simultaneously open ten new stores in the…
Anna Kournikova, who turned a somewhat successful tennis career into a much more successful career being a professional blonde sexy lady, has put her Miami Beach home on the market for $9.4 million according to AOL. The seven-bedroom, 6,630-square-foot mansion located on the Sunset Islands boasts waterfront views, stunning Mediterranean…
The Oklahoma City Thunder’s Kevin Durant is taking his talents to downtown Miami. No, the NBA’s leading scorer is not planning on adding himself to the Miami Heat’s monopoly on superstar talent. He’s just going to presumably bring his home-making talent here during the off-season, and has bought an $1.825…
Florida lets get ready to pop some bottles and celebrate, because we’re number one! Again! For the fifth straight year! Those other states can’t even compete. Ain’t got nothing on us here in the Sunshine State. We’ve got this mortgage fraud game on lock.Yes, Florida once again led the nation…
Paramount Bay’s luxury waterfront condo was scheduled to open more than two years ago. But stop by the 46-story blue glass building at 2066 N. Bayshore Dr. and you feel like you’ve wandered onto the set of some post-apocalyptic film.Bright orange cones guard the lonely front steps. Plastic barriers block…
As the HIV/AIDS epidemic enters its fourth decade, powerful antiretroviral drugs give patients hope at living long and relatively normal lives, but those drugs come with a hefty price tag and many patients rely on government assistance programs to obtain them. Florida’s AIDS Drugs Assistance Program has already instituted waiting…
Workers being paid the minimum wage can expect to see a six-cent bump in their hourly pay come June 1st after a judge ruled that Florida was violating its own constitution by not raising the rate for 2011. That may not seem like a lot, but it does add up…
LeBron James wants to be respected just as much in the boardroom as he is on the ball court, but his latest business venture doesn’t seem like a sure slam dunk. A business co-founded by James introduced a line of disolvable strips that pack as much caffeine as a cup…
Jose Canseco spent his time on Celebrity Apprentice being as boring as possible and playing a lot of catch with Meatloaf. Then he left early, saying his father was deathly ill. Then Canseco was supposed to fight in a celebrity boxing match in Hollywood, but tried to send his twin…
From a subtropical ski slope to a spinning skyscraper, Miami is the nation’s capital of obscenely audacious projects that never come to fruition. Why not a sovereign, moving island the size of Manhattan? English multimillionaire Ben Way, we get the feeling, is the sort of fellow who would demand that…
Theodore Ross Dempster, a relatively little-known attorney in Miami, has been disbarred after allegations he ran a racket similar to a Ponzi scheme. Dempster is alleged to have set up a company purportedly involved in real estate development in Georgia, and collected hundreds of thousands of dollars from various investors…
Buying a house in Miami has never been cheaper in recent times, but that’s probably because so few of us are actually in a financial situation where we can buy a house. Though the alternative, renting, continues to be an economic burden for many South Floridians. The metro area leads…
Brickell Citicentre was one of the most ambitious development projects announced during the height of Miami’s epic construction boom, but it canceled after the bottom fell out of the market in 2007. The project’s collection of skyscrapers would have forever altered the Miami skyline, while its massive retail space would…
Another sign things are slowly getting better in the 305: Miami International Airport reports that 9.3 million passengers somehow survived getting through the airport in the first three months of 2011. That’s the highest number of passengers during that part of the year ever for MIA, and a 6.1 percent…
Back in 1987, writer T.D. Allman declared in the title of his book that Miami was “The City of the Future,” and over the next two decades, our metropolitan area largely made good on the moniker through impressive growth and increasing economic importance. Twenty-four years later, though, Miami is looking…
The Federal Bureau of Economic Analysis has released its county-level estimates of per capita personal income (total personal income divided by population) for 2009, and apparently the people of Miami-Dade brought in $36,357 each on average. That’s a much smaller figure than most of our neighboring counties, though compared to…
Miami’s real estate woes are far from over, but the sales numbers from March bring hope that things are getting better. Sales of existing condos jumped 85 percent in the Miami metropolitan area in March 2011 compared to March 2010, and jumped 80 percent compared to February 2011. Though, the…
Given the high profile cases of Bernie Madoff, Scott Rothstein and Allen Stanford, the image of a Ponzi schemer is usually that of some rich white guy with a cigar hanging out of his mouth praying on already well-off investors, but not all schemers fit that bill. Marguerite Martial Jean,…
Haven’t heard of Barry Jenkins? You will, soon enough.The indie movie director’s latest film, Chlorophyl, opens this weekend at Miami’s very own seventh annual Borscht Film Festival. His first feature film Medicine for Melancholy was called one of the best flicks of 2009 by the New York Times. And he’s…
Call it the curse of 1439 Washington Avenue. When it comes to South Beach nightclubs, this address is deadly.Like Suite, Apple, Liquid, and a half dozen other clubs to occupy the same space across from Española Way over the years, LUX nightclub is no more. Earlier this month, a Miami-Dade…
