Miami Downtown & Brickell
Watson Island
The island of about 70 acres was deeded to the city in 1919 with the restriction that it only be used for public or municipal purposes.
It had the name changed from Causeway Island to Watson Island, named for John W. Watson Sr., who was Mayor of Miami 1912-1915 and 1917–1919.
A Goodyear Blimp base was located on Watson Island from 1930 to 1978 when it moved the base to Opa-locka Airport. In 2003 the Parrot Jungle relocated from Pinecrest, Florida to Watson Island and was renamed Jungle Island. The Miami Children's Museum also relocated to the island in 2003.
On May 24, 2010, construction began on the Port of Miami Tunnel which was completed on August 3, 2014.
Miami Children Museum
The Museum was founded as Miami Youth Museum in 1983. With the help of a leadership committee chaired by Alan Potamkin and Norman Braman, two large Miami car dealerships, they raised $8.2 million and the State of Florida awarded additionally a total of $2.4 million and the Museum moved to Watson Island in 2003.
The museum on 56,500 square foot includes 14 permanent galleries, a charter school, a parent/teacher resource center, a "Kid Smart" educational gift shop, a 200-seat auditorium.
The museum has had over 5 million guests since 2003 and over 400,000 annual visitors.
Jungle Island
Opened on December 20, 1936 as Parrot Jungle in Pinecrest, Florida it is one of the oldest tourist attractions established in the Miami area. It was moved on June 28, 2003 to the current location on Watson Island and renamed in "Jungle Island",
It is a eco-adventure park and features new pop-up waterslides, a beach, an outdoor wind tunnel flight experience, zip lines, escape rooms, a Nerf battle stadium and many animal attractions.
Main attraction right now is a 600 pound Liger, a cross breed of a lion and a tiger with the name "Hercules".
Port Miami Tunnel
The Port of Miami Tunnel (is a 4,200-foot (1,300 m) undersea tunnel under the Biscayne Bay in Miami connecting the MacArthur Causeway on Watson Island with the PortMiami, the Container and Cruise Ship Port on Dodge Island.
The cost of the project was 1 billion US dollar and it was built in a public–private partnership between the Florida Department of Transportation, Miami-Dade County, the City of Miami and MAT Concessionaire LLC.
But the tunnel is worth every penny. Before the existence of the tunnel, all the heavy traffic, the container and truck traffic to service the cruisship and container port, was going through downtown and over the Port bridge creating tremendous traffic and air pollution.
Now the trucks are able to go from the highways dirctly through the tunnel to the port.
Construction began in May 2010. and the tunnel was opened to traffic on August 3, 2014.
The tunnel which averages about 16,000 vehicles per day.
Perez Museum for Contemporary Art
Jorge M. Pérez Art Museum of Miami-Dade County is a contemporary art museum that relocated in 2013 to the Maurice A. Ferré Park in Downtown Miami, the former Bicentennial Park. Founded in 1984 as the Center for the Fine Arts, it became known as the Miami Art Museum from 1996 until it was renamed in 2013. Jorge M. Pérez, longtime trustee and collector of Latin American art, made a gift of $35 million to support the new museum, which was in turn renamed the Jorge M. Pérez Art Museum of Miami-Dade County.
The museum cost $220 million to build, with $100 million coming from Miami-Dade voters in general obligation bond funding,[19] and $120 million from private donors
In 2014, the museum's permanent collection contained over 1,800 works, particularly 20th- and 21st-century art from the Americas, Western Europe and Africa.
The permanent collection has grown steadily and now comprises more than 2000 works across a range of media.
Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science
The Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science, formerly known as the Miami Science Museum or Miami Science Museum and Space Transit Planetarium, is a science museum, planetarium, and aquarium and originally opened its Coconut Grove location across from Vizcaya Museum and Gardens in 1960. It relocated to Maurice A. Ferré Park in the downtown area adjacent to the Perez Art Museum Miami in 2017 in the Miami's Museum Park.
In March 2011, Phillip Frost, who made his billions in the pharmaceutical industry, and his wife, Patricia, donated $35 million for the construction of a new science museum which ws named after them.
Completed at a cost of $305 million, the new 250,000 sq ft Philip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science opened on May 8, 2017.
Sitting on four acres (1.6 ha), the new LEED Gold-certified complex consists of four interconnected buildings with parking underneath:
The Frost Planetarium is a 250-seat full-dome screen with a diameter of 67 feet (20 m) and a 16-million-color, 8K projection system.
The three-story, cone-shaped, 500,000-US-gallon (1,900,000 L) Aquarium is open to the top level and also includes a 31-foot (9.4 m) diameter oculus lens at the bottom for viewing the fish, rays and sharks.
The North and West Wings contain permanent and rotating exhibit galleries, Guest and Member Services, concessions and the gift shop, offices, and the Knight Learning Center with four classrooms
Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts
Built partly on the location of the former Sears Department Store (built in 1929), it opened October 5, 2006 as the Carnival Center. It is the second largest performing arts centers in the United States after the Lincoln Center in New York. The original tower of the Sears department store is integrated into the complex and is one of the oldest Art Deco buildings in Miami.
The AAC stands on 4 acres, and the building cost was $472 million.
On January 10, 2008, the Businesswoman Adrienne Arsht makes a $30 million donation to the center, and it was renamed Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts.
The Arsht family founded Total Bank and sold it to City National Bank of Florida (CNBFL) in 2018 for $528 million.
The center is Home of the Florida Grand Opera, the New World Symphony and the Miami City Ballet, the Center hosts approximately 400 performances and events each year that attract an average of 450,000 people to Miami’s urban core.
The Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts has generated over $2 billion in local economic impact and driven more than $1 billion in new public and private investments in downtown Miami since 2006.
The center includes:
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The Sanford and Dolores Ziff Ballet Opera House seats 2,400
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The John S. and James L. Knight Concert Hall seats 2,200
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The Carnival Studio Theater has a flexible black-box space with 250 seats.
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The Peacock Rehearsal Studio holds 270 people
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Parker and Vann Thomson Plaza for the Arts
Freedom Tower (Miami)
The tower was built in 1925 and until1928, with 256 ft meters height, the tallest building in Miami. After 1928 the Courthouse, with 28 floors and 360 ft, was higher.
It was built as office building for the first Newspaper in Miami the Miami News (founded 1896).
The newspaper also known as the Miami Metropolitan, which was direct competition to the Miami Herald which started in 1903, occupied the building until 1957.
It was empty from 1957 until 1959 when the US Government took over the tower for immigration offices to accomidate about 500,000 Cuban refugees which were fleeing the island of Cuba after the Cuban revolution when Fidel Castro came to power.
Coming into the port, the tower was the first Highrise building and is still today one of the highest buildings in town and the first buildings the Cuban immigrants saw coming into the port. In this building they received their immigration papers and work permits and therefore they called the building “The Freedoms Tower”.
In the 1990’s the building was in bad shape and needed major restauration.
It was sold in 1997 for 4.1 million dollars to a group of Cuban exiles under the leadership of Jorge Mas Canosa who became very wealthy with construction and his MasTec company and Terra Group. They renovated it and donated it to the Miami Community College, and it is used today as museum, the MOAD – Museum of Art and Design.
Kaseya Center, Home of the Miami Heat
Kaseya Center is a multi-purpose arena on Biscayne Bay and home to the Miami Heat, Miami's hometeam of the National Basketball Association (NBA).
The building was built on City property, paid by Micky Arison, founder and owner of the Heat franchise and major shareholder of the Carnival Cruise Line, the world's largest cruise company with headquarters in Doral.
Since 2011 his son Nick Arison is the CEO and Pat Rilley the president managing team and arena.
The cost of the stadium was $213, and it has a capacity for 19,500 people, including 2,105 club seats, 80 luxury suites, and 76 private boxes.
The Miami Heat team was founded in 1988 won 3 NBA championships, 7 Conference title wins and 16 Divisions titles.
Forbes estimates in late 2025 the market value of the Miami Heat franchise at $5.7 Billion (8th of all NBA Franchises)
Brickell Ave & Financial Center
Brickell, named after William and Mary Brickell co-founders of the City of Miami, is Miami's bustling business and financial district. Known for its skyline of luxury high-rises, international banks, upscale restaurants, great shopping at places like Brickell City Centre, and vibrant nightlife, all set against beautiful Biscayne Bay, it is one of the fastest growing areas in the city.
The Brickell family arrived in 1871 and owned 2,500-acre South of the mouth of the Miami river with a huge mansion which was also used as Trading Post and Post office. The location were the mansion was is today Brickell Park.
The area along the bay was heavily overgrown with Hammocks and Palmettos and called the Brickel Jungle until construction started.
The main road, Brickell Avenue, was in the beginning of the 20th century Miami's "Millionaire's Row" with lavish mansions along Brickell Avenue.
Brickell is one of Miami's fastest growing neighborhood with a population of 40,000 (2025), has the largest concentration of international banks in the U.S. and is the largest banking hub in the U.S. outside of New York City.
Over 240,000 people work in greater downtown and many countries have their consulates and embassies here.
There are over 40 Highrise buildings in Brickel,
Here are some of the important buildings in Brickell:
· Sabadell Financial Center: 430 ft, 31 floors, built in 2000
· Brickell World Plaza: 520 ft, 40 floors, 2011
· 1450 Brickell: 540 feet, 35 floors, 2010
· 830 Brickell: 724 ft, 55 floors, 2023
· Solitair Brickell: 420 apartments, 555 ft, 2025
· 1010 Brickell: residential, 548 feet, 50 floors, 400 units, 2017
· Panorama Tower: 868 ft, 85 floors, mix use, 2018
· Axis at Brickell Village residential twin towers, 418 ft ,40 fl., 2008
· SLS Hotel & Residences: 599 ft, 52 floors, 2016
· Aston Martin Residences: 817 ft, 66 floors, 2024
· Paramount Miami World Center: 699 feet, 2019
· Bezel: 493 feet ,2021.
· Miami World Tower I: 579 feet, 2024.
Brickell City Centre, one of four big shopping centers in Miami, is in the heart of Brickell. It was completed in 2016 with a pricetag of $1.05 billion and is one of only a very view shopping centers built in a downtown area of a Mega city in the US.
The center is a large mixed-use complex consisting of two residential high-rise towers, two office buildings, a high-rise hotel, and an interconnected five-story shopping mall and lifestyle center covering 9 acres
Miami Circle
The Miami Circle, is an archaeological site in Brickell, Miami. It consists of a perfect circle measuring 38 feet (11.5m) of 600 postmolds that contain 24 holes or basins cut into the limestone bedrock. The site predates other known permanent settlements on the East Coast and it is believed to have been the location of a structure, built by the Tequesta Indians, in what was possibly their capital. Discovered in 1998, the site is believed to be somewhere between 1,700 and 2,700 years old.
The state bought the 2.5-acre site for $26.7 million to save the valuable historical site.
Artifacts recovered from the Miami Circle site are stored and on display at HistoryMiami which is the official repository for all archaeological materials recovered in Miami-Dade County
Public Transportation
Metro Mover
Metromover is a fare-free automated people mover system that serves the Downtown area in Miami.
It serves primarily as an alternative way to travel within the greater Downtown Miami neighborhoods.
The system is composed of three loops and 21 stations which are located approximately two blocks away from each other, and connect near all major buildings and places in the Downtown area. As of 2025, the system has 7,683,800 rides per year, or about 25,600 per day in the fourth quarter of 2025.
The cost of building the system was about $153.3 million and it started operating in 1986.
Metro Rail
Metrorail is a rapid transit system in Miami. It opened in 1984 and is Florida's only rapid transit metro system.
It consists of two lines and 23 stations over 24.4 miles of standard gauge track.
Metrorail serves central Miami and surrounding areas, including Miami International Airport, the Health District, Downtown Miami, and Brickell, as well as the northern communities of Hialeah and Medley. To the south, service extends through The Roads, Coconut Grover, Coral Gables, and South Miami to Dadeland in Kendall. The system connects to the Metromover in Downtown Miami and to Tri-Rail and Brightline services. Metrobus routes serve all stations. In 2025, the system recorded 14,971,300 trips, with an average of 50,300 weekday riders as of the fourth quarter of 2025.
Tri Rail
Tri-Rail is a commuter rail service linking Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach. The Tri prefix in the name refers to the three counties served by the railroad: Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami-Dade.[
The 80-mile-long system has 19 stations along the Southeast Florida coast, and connects directly to Amtrak at numerous stations, to Metrorail at the Metrorail Transfer station, Miami Airport station, and MiamiCentral, and to Brightline at MiamiCentral.
In 2025, the line had a ridership of 4,924,100, or about 13,400 per weekday as of the fourth quarter of 2025.
Brightline
Brightline (reporting mark: BLFX) is an intercity rail route, with some aspects of a commuter rail, in the United States that runs between Miami and Orlando, Florida.
Construction began in November 2014 and the route began service initially in January 2018 between Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach. The Orlando segment began service in September 2023 and additional stops are being planned.
Brightline's maximum operating speed is 125 miles per hour over a 35-mile section between Orlando and Cocoa. Trains with an average speed of 69 miles per hour, cover the 235-mile route in 3 hours and 25 minutes.
Metrobus
Introduced on August 2, 1960, the Metrobus network is a bus system is operated by Miami-Dade Transit and consists of 95 routes connecting most points in the county and part of southern Broward County as well. As of 2025, the system has 56,482,500 rides per year, or about 178,000 per day in the fourth quarter of 2025.
Seven routes operate around the clock other routes operate from 4:30 am to 1:30 am. All Metrobuses are wheelchair accessible and equipped with Bicycle racks.