$461M Arts Center Opens Thursday

MIAMI-After 16 years of planning and five years of actual construction, the two-building, 570,000-sf, $461-million Carnival Center for the Performing Arts is scheduled to kick off a four-day grand opening celebration Thursday at a low-income, off-Downtown location.

The complex is expected to trigger at least $1 billion in new retail, office, residential and restaurant development around the center’s 5.9-acre location at 1300 Biscayne Blvd., area brokers and developer representatives tell GlobeSt.com. The original development budget was $170 million.

Parker Thompson, a long-time Miami lawyer and chairman of the Miami-Dade Performing Arts Center Trust, calls the $461-million development cost a bargain for the city, even with an overrun of $291 million.