Museum Park Shrinks

The new Miami Art Museum is on schedule for completion for the fall of 2013, while the new Miami Science Museum (MiaSci), which broke ground in February, eyes a completion date for the end of 2014. The ambitious plans to redevelop Bicentennial Park as Museum Park, however, have been scaled back to a promenade and bay walk. Still, both museums will have will have extensive landscaping.

The Miami Herald reports the ambitious design plans of Cooper Robertson & Partners of New York City for Miami's Museum Park have been ratcheted back from a $68 million vision for a 20-acre green space with gardens, water sculpted mounds and a shallow pool to a basic $10 million plan to create a promenade from Biscayne Boulevard to Biscayne Bay and a bay walk. The city is currently considering five bids from contractors.

The $220 million project to build the Miami Science Museum and the Miami Art Museum is still on tract.

While the park will not be as lavish as planned, it will still have trees and open spaces. However, the museums will have extensive landscaping done by Miami's ArquitectonicaGeo. There will also be landscaping designed by James Corner Field Operations of New York City on the plaza between the two museums.

Among the pricier park elements nixed is the underground parking garage and a restaurant.

The biggest concern for city officials is that the Museum Park promenade will not be ready in time for the grand opening of the Miami Science Museum in early December 2013.