I walked the loop road at Morningside Park last week, the one that curls past the boat ramp toward the bay, and stopped where the chain link used to be. The new seawall is poured. Fresh concrete, still pale, running along the shoreline where the old one had been crumbling for years. Behind it, though, the pool is still fenced off, same as it's been since 2016. The kayak racks near the ramp are empty, no boats, no attendant, nothing posted about when that might change. A block and a half up Biscayne, the marquee at the old General Tire Building has new letters going up. Burgers & Shakes. The pizza place that used to be there closed on New Year's Eve.
Two projects, two timelines. One of them is a public works job that's been in motion since a groundbreaking in December 2024. The other is a burger chain that lined up a replacement tenant and had a sister location open for business faster than the city could finish repairing a seawall. If you've been hearing "the park reopens this summer" and assuming that means the whole park, back to how it used to be, the actual story is more specific than that, and worth knowing before you plan your next Saturday around it.
What Summer 2026 Was Always Supposed to Mean
The renovation broke ground in December 2024 amid a fair amount of noise. WLRN reported that Phase I, the eastern shoreline work, was expected to run until summer of 2026. That's this season. The scope for this phase was always narrower than "the park": a new seawall, a raised baywalk, trail work, solar lighting, and improvements to the boat ramp and its parking area. Drainage fixes for the western half of the park, along with additional landscaping, were pushed to a later phase with no completion date attached.
The City of Miami's own capital projects page lists the specs: 1,200 linear feet of new seawall, 2,250 linear feet of new baywalk. WLRN's reporting put construction costs at just under $17 million, with the full bill, design and project management included, landing near $19.3 million. That money came from a mix of sources: a $4.4 million grant from the Florida Inland Navigation District, a Nature Conservancy grant tied to coastal resilience, city impact fees, and Miami Forever Bond dollars.
None of that was quiet. The baywalk's width, 15 feet instead of the roughly 6-foot path it replaced, became a genuine flashpoint. Resident Elvis Cruz argued at the time that the old path had worked fine, telling CBS Miami, "This isn't downtown Miami." Neighbor Maji Ramos pushed for less concrete and more green space at the groundbreaking itself. District 2 Commissioner Damian Pardo, who lives in Morningside, defended the project as overdue, noting it was the first major work at the park in a quarter century.
That fight is largely settled now. The seawall and baywalk are the visible result. But "Phase I complete" was never a promise about the whole park.
What Isn't Part of This Summer's Finish Line
A few things residents have been asking about aren't actually in scope for the current work, and knowing that saves you from checking back every week expecting a different answer:
- The pool. It's sat behind a fence since 2016, in a flood zone a few yards from the bay. Rebuilding it further inland has been discussed as part of the park's longer-term master plan, but it isn't part of the seawall-and-baywalk phase wrapping this summer.
- Western shoreline drainage. That's Phase II, and it has no announced start or completion date yet.
- The kayak concession. Morningside Watersports, the paddle rental operation that used to run out of the park, was shut down by the city in November 2024. WLRN's reporting attributed the closure to the operator lacking a valid Certificate of Use and Business Tax Receipt. No new operator has been announced since.
So the honest summary: the shoreline itself is in much better shape, and that matters for flooding and for the walk along the water. But if your mental image of "the park is done" includes a working pool and a place to rent a kayak, that image is still a ways off.
The Turnover That Actually Happened Fast
Meanwhile, two blocks up Biscayne, a full commercial cycle played out in less time than it's taken the city to finish one phase of shoreline work.
The General Tire Building at 5600 Biscayne Boulevard was designed in 1954 by architect Robert Law Weed, originally as a Standard Oil gas station, one of the buildings that helped define the MiMo Historic District's roadside character. Restaurateur Mark Soyka turned it into Andiamo Brick Oven Pizza in 2001, and it stayed that way for 23 years, long enough to become one of the neighborhood's actual institutions rather than just another address. Andiamo served its final pizzas on December 31, 2025.
Seven months later, Miami New Times reported that Burgers & Shakes, founded in 2011 by George and Elizabeth Iglesias under Benoli Hospitality Group, would take over the space. The company opened a North Miami location at 899 NE 125th Street on Tuesday, August 4, the same week I was walking past the empty kayak racks. The MiMo location inside the old General Tire Building doesn't have a firm opening date yet, but the buildout is visibly underway, and the operators have said they're keeping the midcentury facade and restoring elements of the original signage rather than starting over.
That's the contrast worth sitting with. A private tenant found a historic building, signed a lease, and had a sister location serving customers within seven months of the old tenant's last day. The MiMo storefront itself is still mid-buildout, but the turnaround from empty landmark to operating brand has already outpaced the park a mile away. A public infrastructure project that started twenty months ago is still finishing the first of at least two phases, on a shoreline that residents have been asking the city to fix for more than a decade. Neither pace is unusual for what it is. But if you've been wondering why the park feels slower to change than the street around it, that's the actual mechanism, not neglect, just two very different processes moving at two very different speeds.
What Hasn't Moved at All
Through all of it, the one fixture that hasn't changed pace is the Saturday morning at Legion Park. The farmers market run by Urban Oasis Project still sets up under the banyan trees every Saturday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., year round, regardless of what's happening a few blocks south at the shoreline. Little River Cooperative and French Farm still bring produce. Angry Booch still has kombucha. Pablo's Empanadas still sells out most weeks. Anamargret Sanchez still leads a free, donation-based yoga class from 10 to 11 a.m. before the market crowd builds. If you want a read on the neighborhood that hasn't shifted under construction dust or a change in restaurant signage, that Saturday morning is still it.
If You Live Here
The practical version of all this: expect the shoreline to look genuinely better this summer, expect the pool and the kayak rental to stay closed for a while longer, and expect the burger joint to open on its own schedule rather than the city's. None of that requires a decision from you. It's just useful to know which parts of "the park is finished" are actually true right now, and which parts are still, politely, in progress.
If you're weighing a move into Morningside, or already own here and are curious what any of this means for your own property, I'm always glad to talk through it, no pressure attached. Reach out to Max Mlekus any time. Let's Connect.
