"Adios' for Little Havana?

As revitalization sweeps through Little Havana, the Hispanic neighborhood's character is undergoing rapid changes.

BY DANIEL SHOER-ROTH
El Nuevo Herald

There are few South Florida aficionados of Cuban food who haven't enjoyed the offerings at El Rey de las Fritas, a Little Havana landmark for more than four decades.

But at year's end, the Calle Ocho cafeteria, which prides itself on selling ''The Original Cuban Fritas'' -- spicy Cuban-style beef patties with shoestring fries on the side -- will close its doors to make way for a new mixed-use development that will sprawl an entire block.

It's emblematic of the changes coming to Little Havana as revitalization ripples through a neighborhood first reinvigorated by Cuban exiles in the 1960s and then settled by subsequent waves of Latin American immigrants.

''This is a historical place for all Cubans. Leaving it stirs all kinds of feelings,'' said El Rey de las Fritas owner Angelina González, who plans to move the restaurant now located at 1177 SW Eighth St. farther to the east. ``It's the price of change in Little Havana.''

The construction boom is bringing luxury condominiums, commercial centers and towering office buildings that threaten to dim the neighborhood's original character and have already sent some of Little Havana's long-time residents packing.

`THE NEW HAVANA'

''It's as if they were moving the downtown area over here,'' said Sonia Valdez who works at Casino Records, near the corner of Calle Ocho and Southwest 12th Avenue. ``Prosperity will come. But one gets the impression that this will cease to be Little Havana and become The New Havana.''

The neighborhood's proximity to Miami's financial center has made it a natural target of the galloping real estate expansion now transforming Miami. Currently 4,172 residential units, 95,145 square feet of office space and 188,864 square feet of space for businesses are either completed, under construction or in the planning stage, said José Casanova, an urban planner at the City of Miami Department of Planning.

The rebirth has attracted $330 million in private investment, according to the planning department, but it has forced families to leave the area because rental prices have skyrocketed and dozens of buildings have been demolished.

PRICES RISE

The empty lots that now dot the neighborhood will be occupied by residential complexes that few current residents will be able to afford.

''The feeling of a neighborhood that welcomed immigrants looking for a better future is vanishing,'' said Fernando González of the community organization Vecinos en Acción (Neighbors in Action). ``Everybody wants a beautiful and clean neighborhood, but where will the people go?''

Municipal authorities maintain that the development is generally positive, since it is spurring an economic renaissance along Southwest Eighth Street or Calle Ocho, Little Havana's main street, and has lowered the crime rate.

''We are not destroying history; we're making history,'' said Commissioner Joe Sánchez, who has spearheaded the revitalization effort. ``We want to make sure that we don't lose our roots in Little Havana.''

THE CHAIN STORES

But the arrival of the big supermarket and drugstore chains has created an exodus of small local pharmacies, known as boticas, and bodegas (groceries), as well as small furniture stores and family-owned cafeterias where customers were greeted by name.

Even community leaders who applaud the transformation acknowledge that the neighborhood ''is looking more and more like the Brickell area,'' said Pablo Cantón, administrator of the Neighborhood Enhancement Team of Little Havana.

''It's going to be a natural change,'' he predicted.

But Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, dean of the University of Miami's School of Architecture, said the construction boom ``is changing not only Little Havana's architectural character but also its urban character.''

The phenomenon is similar to what has happened in other South Florida neighborhoods where urban development is destroying community idiosyncrasies, warned Nancy Liebman, president of the Urban Environment League of Greater Miami.

In Little Havana, many of the buildings -- though marred by time and the construction of illegal additions -- date back to the 1920s and '30s and have historical value, Plater-Zyberk said.

''The original configuration says this is Little Havana in Miami and developers should be required to build more compatible with the existing buildings,'' Liebman said. `But historic preservation of the city has been poor. Little Havana should have been designated a historic preservation zone.'

As mixed-use buildings rise, attracting chain stores and residents with deep pockets, the neighborhood will lose much of its flavor, residents say.

''The Tower Theater and Domino Park will remain,'' said Eloy Aparicio, a Calle Ocho activist who owns Ultral Jewelry Store at 1171 SW Eighth St.

He will move his three-decades old business to another site, several blocks away.

''With modernization,'' he predicts, ``Little Havana just won't be the same.''