Miami city commission set to give away historic Olympia Theater — for $10

The Olympia Theater, a beloved but distressed 1926 Beaux Arts jewel in the heart of downtown Miami, could go from historic cultural treasure to charter school annex at Thursday’s city commission meeting. Commissioners will consider selling the Flagler Street structure to Sports Leadership and Management Miami, a 6-12 charter school operated by none other than Academica, a for-profit charter giant with major political ties.
And all for the bargain price of a cafecito con un pastelito.
The plan is for SLAM to “buy” the theater and the adjacent 10-story office building for $10 — yes, ten American dollars — and in exchange, they promise to restore it to its former glory and use the theater space for only 180 days a year. That’s less than half the time. And, you know, it’s not in writing. There’s no actual promise in the contract. We just have to trust them. They also promise to provide community cultural events and programming. Just you wait and see!
SLAM’s current campus at Northwest 12th Street
So, the school itself would operate out of the building, while the theater would serve as a cultural hub — managed by the same folks who run a sports-focused charter school, who have no experience restoring gilded ceilings or booking symphonies.
Not to worry! Fernando Zulueta, the big boss at Academica, says they’re going to make an “enormous investment.” He estimates $50 million in repairs and renovations. How much of that is public money, charter dollars, tax credits or straight-up fairy dust remains to be seen.
The concept has been brought to the commission by the Department of Real Estate and Asset Management, which apparently no longer wants to manage the Olympia Theater, which is also known as the Gusman Cultural Center for Performing Arts, named after Maurice Gusman, a Ukrainian-born philanthropist who renovated it and donated it to the city of Miami in 1975. It has been pitched as a generous act of civic salvation. “We’re saving the building,” they cry. “We’re doing this for you!”
Because nothing says ‘historic preservation’ for the ‘public goo’ like charter school real estate deals.
But Mayor Francis Suarez — who might or might not be back from his vacay home in the Bahamas — recently told the Miami Herald that he is the one who put together this shady transaction after a phone call from a “friend” who knew about the “behind the scenes” deal, which is another way to say it was a backroom, secret pact.
“It’s fair to say that I helped connect all the dots,” Suarez is quoted saying.
Tell me this is an inside deal, without telling me it’s an inside deal.
Read related: Secret giveaway of Miami’s Olympia Theater is on city commission agenda
This agreement first popped up on the June 26 commission agenda to most people’s surprise. There was some resistance, an editorial in the newspaper. A lot of concerned speakers at public comment. So, it was deferred to the meeting Thursday. There has been some public outreach in the meantime: A community meeting and a Zoom call with the city manager. There is a petition on Change.org that picked up 986 signatures to save the Olympia in a matter of days as of Wednesday night.
But if it still seems like the city is in a hurry to shed any responsibility for the theater, it’s because it is. The city manager’s excuse about it being because the school year is about to start is BS. This is about a lawsuit.
The Gusman family, heirs of the theater’s original owner, are suing the city, citing a “reverter clause” that says they get the building back if the politicians screw up its maintenance and operations. Spoiler alert: They did. That’s what’s caused the urgency here. There is no way they are going to be able to turn those 80 antique apartment units into classrooms in a month. City Manager Art Noriega lied to residents when he said the rush is to accommodate students. It’s to accommodate developers.
The family’s lawyer, Timothy Barket, practically yelled at the public during last week’s heated community meeting, telling the crowd:“You’re not losing your building, because this was never your building!” Ouch.
He also said they were tired of broken promises and needed to move forward and were not willing to look at any other public private partnership RFPs. “We’ve done that. We’ve been bit by this dog before,” Barket said.
“The Gusman family is sick of the city of Miami.”
Ah, civic engagement! Nothing builds trust like a millionaire’s lawyer telling residents they have no stake in a public treasure.
“They’re the ones trying to force the giveaway of the property,” said former Commissioner Ken Russell, who is running for mayor and has publicly come out against the agreement on social media and in a press conference where he basically said the city was lying. They say there is no money to help restore the Olympia Theater. Russell, who left office early to run for Congress, said the city had $79 million in Miami Forever Bond monies to use on cultural facilities and that an oversight board had recommended the Gusman restoration be funded, at least in part, with that. The commission voted for it, he said.
“It’s there. Line items. That money is there,” he said.
Those who support this agreement say they believe this is the best way to save the building. The mayor, the city manager and District 2 Commissioner Damian Pardo, say the city can’t afford to restore the theater, and the school is willing to pour $50 million into the historic renovation. The deal is sweetened with the city’s own reverter clause that says it gets the property back if SLAM fails to fix the place up or stops using it for public education purposes that they swear they will have. Again, just trust them.
Oh, and the city could lose the property anyway in the lawsuit from the Gusman Foundation.
But at least there’s a fighting chance. Especially if the city finds a better option while the lawsuit drags on in court. Critics of the proposal say the city has not exhausted all alternative uses. There was an RFP a few years ago, but it was flawed because the city refused to put any skin in the game. There are still dollars from the Miami Forever Bond, which were supposed to go to the theater anyway but were diverted to, um, “more important” projects, like road surfacing and storm water drainage improvements.
The city hasn’t said how much is left of the bond monies or how much they can get for the air rights, which are development rights they can’t use because of the historic footprint but can sell to another developer to use nearby. These are unanswered questions that could be addressed through a more thorough competitive process. Let SLAM and Academica submit a bid. If it’s the best, and there are truly no other better options, then at least there was a public process.
But this city commission are the same folks who cancelled an election — without asking voters.
Commissioner Pardo, who sponsored the change in election year that effectively cancelled this November’s mayoral and commission election, has particularly gone out of his way to promote the deal on social media. On Wednesday, he answered five of the most common questions he said his office got about the agreement. He made sure to tag Suarez, too, so he gets his brownie points.
Pardo cites “in-writing safeguards and guaranteed commitments,” ad well as Miami Dade College being a partner, which is echoing the applicants. He sounds more like their lobbyist than the District 2 commissioner.
“The city has never had, nor is it expected to have, the funds to restore the Olympia,” he said in a post on Instagram. Pardo doesn’t call or text Ladra back anymore because I don’t just believe everything he says anymore.
He also said that while people are now saying the city should fund the renovation, they also prioritize public safety, parks, traffic calming, street improvements, infrastructure for flooding and resiliency, affordable housing and more. “City residents also prioritize lower taxes,” he said. ¡Que cínico!
And Ladra has a feeling those words are going to come back to haunt him when he wants to do something.
Read related: Ka-ching! Miami DDA is doling out more checks to billionaire companies
If this is really about historic preservation, why does the theater get handed over to a charter school network with deep political ties and real estate ambitions? And why did the whole thing appear on the City Commission agenda last month with barely enough notice to post it on a bulletin board at Publix?
Why did people like pianist Orlando Alonso, a Cuban-American actor and producer who had talks last year with the administration about redeveloping it as a Lincoln Center or Carnegie Hall, not even know it was happening until someone told him it was on the June agenda? Alonso formed a team of developers and professional theater operators from his experience and contacts in New York at Carnegie Hall and the Lincoln Center and has worked for six years to develop a plan, he told Ladra. They met with city officials and commissioners twice and made their presentation.
It fell apart when the city failed to offer anything in the form of grant monies or bond funds to help with the pricy renovation. But let’s be real: The Academica scheme was already in play. Ladra is sure it was discussed last year around the same time that Suarez had Zulueta on his podcast, where he called Academica CEO a “genius” and “someone who has revolutionized education.”
Wonder if he called him a “friend” there, too.
Also, Ladra doubts anyone else got to make a proposal for $10.
“History is not made in grand moments alone, but in the quiet accumulation of choices,” Alonso said at last week’s press conference to save the theater. “One compromise here. One betrayal there. Over time, they add up — until a people, and a city, forget their soul. And that is precisely what has happened in Miami.
“The mayor of this city — and those who support his bankrupt vision — have erred again and again on the side of destruction,” he said. And everybody certainly remembers the Coconut Grove Playhouse, right? Which was demolished by neglect?
“The Olympia deserves artists and operators worthy of its acoustics, of its beauty, of its potential – and more importantly, worthy of the values it represents,” Alonso continued. “But those pushing this deal do not understand any of this. Because they do not understand beauty. They do not understand legacy. They understand only transactions.
“And when you only understand transactions, you destroy what you cannot monetize. Even the Gusman family—who once stood for preservation – has failed in this moment. They have joined a backroom deal that betrays Maurice Gusman’s legacy,” Alonso said. “When Maurice Gusman saved the Olympia, when he gave it to the people of Miami, he understood something fundamental: that the future of this building could never belong to one person. Its survival depended on all of us – on the people of this city.”
The vote Thursday needs four out of five commissioners to pass. So if just two commissioners think the Gusman’s history is worth them opening the process up, the deal is dead. Or at least delayed. Thursday’s meeting is the last before the summer break. There won’t be another meeting in August, unless commissioners make those arrangements.
Anyone who wants to try to preserve one of Miami’s last cultural and historical gems — not just SLAM-dunk it into a for-profit school portfolio — can make public comments beginning at 9:30 a.m. Thursday at City Hall, 3900 Dinner Key Drive. The meeting can also be watched on the city’s website and YouTube.
The post Miami city commission set to give away historic Olympia Theater — for $10 appeared first on Political Cortadito.

Read Full Story