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via Shop Midtown
When the mega complex of Midtown Miami opened many worried it would stymie the growth of Wynwood’s art scene. How are artists supposed to meditate on all the darkness in the world when there’s a deal on 2 for 1 tube socks just a few block away? Well, two years latter the creativity in Wynwood is as strong as it ever was, and it’s the corporate powers of Midtown that are taking the real beating.
Midtown has at least 15 units of un-leased space. Then Ocean Drive faced a round of lay offs and reorganization, though their Midtown studios were unaffected. Linen N’ Things is going out of business, taking it’s store with it. Then Circuit City announced it was closing 100 stores. While their location in Midtown will remain open, today’s announcement that the chain was filing for bankruptcy puts the entire company’s future in question.
So it’s just about a perfect storm for Midtown Miami, with the complex itself or certain occupants facing downturns in the print industry, real estate, and retail. All it needed were a GE dealership and a Wachovia branch and it would have been a perfect microcosm of all that is wrong with the economy.
