6 January 2-8, 2025 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com New Times | music | cafe | culture | Night+Day | news | letters | coNteNts | Month XX–Month XX, 2008 miaminewtimes.com MIAMI NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | FILM | ART | STAGE | NIGHT+DAY | METRO | RIPTIDE | LETTERS | CONTENTS | me know the kind of work I do. I want to revive Little River’s story.” Nearly four months later, not much seems to have changed. The Uplands project remains on the drawing board, and Jain has not responded to multiple requests for an update on its status. However, one of the boatyard’s current ten- ants has his own plans for the disused boatyard, a bold concept he calls Vice City District. A mix of luxury, 1980s nostalgia, and environ- mental consciousness, the alternative reinvention is the brainchild of Elo King, a resident of the tiny nearby municipality of El Portal. Karantsalis interviewed King while reporting his story in August. The British entrepreneur ef- fused about Vice City and showed off a set of ren- derings featuring heavy neon embellishment and a Miami Vice-inspired color palette. Karantsalis was already familiar with the images, which had circulated among the aforementioned neighbors and environmentalists, fueling their skepticism and alarm. When he asked Jain about the render- ings, she acknowledged that King was a tenant at the boatyard but disavowed any connection to her Emancipator plans, saying the drawings per- tained to a car storage space King operated in Wynwood. “He made a marketing brochure for his business with cars and glam,” she said. “Boatyard Brouhaha” made no mention of Elo King or his incipient vision. Bold Vision for a Boatyard King arrived in Miami in 2014 from England. By Miami Art Week in 2015, he’d launched Supercar Rooms, touting it as the world’s first “road art” gallery and promising to redefine the Magic City’s experience of automotive and artistic spaces. “I wanted to create something unique,” he says now. Supercar Rooms operated for nearly a decade in Wynwood. When its lease expired in July, King had the cars, many of them relics of pop culture history, transported to Jain’s property on NE 79th Street, where the collection would form an essen- tial element of Vice City District. “They’re more historical cars — every car has a story,” King explains. “Some of them are cars that are used in movies. So people go, ‘Oh, my God, that’s the car in Fast & Furious!’” He also a white 1986 Ferrari Testarossa that he says is the one Don Johnson’s character, Sonny Crockett, acquired in Season 3, Episode 2 of Mi- chael Mann’s iconic 1980s TV series, Miami Vice. “For the 40th anniversary, we had that car do all the 40th-anniversary stuff with all the old ac- tors,” King says. “And that’s what we want to do,” he adds. “I have the DeLorean from Back to the Future and a bunch of other cars.” But this is no luxury car rental operation, he clarifies. His Vice City District is all about evoking nostalgia. “It’s not like we’re trying to rent cars for people to, you know, drive them. We just use the cars to create a time, a moment, a nostalgia feel.” To King, Vice City District isn’t just about showcasing cars — it’s about creating an immersive, almost gamified experience for visitors, mixing Miami Vice nostalgia with a Grand Theft Auto vibe. “I want the experience to feel more like a game. When you come in, you go into what I call the Vice City Bank,” King elaborates. “You get tokens. You get the Vice City dollars. So you basically have a currency within the world of Vice City.” King emphasizes that he wants to build on the layered history of the Emancipator property. “This building has seen so many uses,” he notes, tracing the property’s roots back to its days as a strawberry warehouse in 1919 before Auer- bach’s arrival. “That’s why you see Emancipator LLC,” he adds. “Because they used to build Eman- cipator boats here, cigarette boats that race.” His plans for Vice City District include a gallery showcasing iconic supercars and vintage motor- cycles and a host of interactive experiences. Fu- turistic AI services will also enhance waterfront dining, entertainment, and a members-only lounge. “It’s not going to be a museum,” King stresses. “It’s going to be an area where people can come in, have fun, and get away from the chores of everyday life.” The goal? To create a space that connects Mi- ami’s past to its future. “I want to save the Miami of the ‘80s, but I want to merge it with Gen Z,” he says. “I want to play Phil Collins, but I also want to play Taylor Swift.” Is It Criticism or Is It Bias? King views Vice City District as a destination tha would fill in the gaps left by Miami’s entertain- ment hot spots. “Wynwood is getting too touristy,” he points out. “Now, the only businesses that work there are restaurants and bars. Design District? If you’re not carrying a bag, you look like a thief. People are walking around you. Security is chasing you. It’s uncomfortable.” Little Havana, King allows, retains its charm. “I like it a lot,” he reflects. “But we don’t have that. Little Haiti is just not really picking up. I re- ally would like that to pick up. I heard the Magic City [Innovation] District will change that.” In fact, he says, he’d hoped to establish his proj- ect in Little Haiti, but the logistics didn’t pan out. “That’s where I originally wanted to go. And then there were just no locations. Everything there has been carved up and bought already. Developers are sitting on all of that because they want to go vertical, you know.” With Vice City District, King says, he wants to fill in what Miami’s missing: a cool hangout where people can gather, connect, and escape the mo- notony of cookie-cutter nightlife. King says he intends to plant mangroves and restrict boat traffic to nonmotorized activities like kayaking and paddleboarding to protect Little River’s ecosystem. “We’re taking responsibility to make sure this looks amazing,” he asserts. “We want people to engage with nature while still respecting it.” He envisions boats aligning with the river’s character, steering clear of anything that would disturb its balance. “I want the vintage boats, the vintage-style boats, not the big yachts,” he explains. “There’ll be the boats that were meant for that river. The only boats that can go up and down that river are single 20-foot boats.” Critics have voiced concerns about the proj- ect’s proximity to a manatee protection zone. King acknowledges the environmental challenges but emphasizes his vision for coexisting with the area’s natural inhabitants. “I would like to have flamingos because that’s a picture of Miami that I saw when I was a kid. The flamingos on the bay flying out,” King shares. “Like in El Portal, we have peacocks. I want the peacocks there. I want the iguanas. I want all the wildlife. I want us to live in harmony with the wildlife.” While navigating these ecological concerns, King points to an unspoken layer of scrutiny. “People see a Black guy like me fronting the project, and they’re like, ‘Oh, my God! There goes hip-hop. There goes the neighborhood,’” he says. “They start saying, ‘We need to keep the area the way it was.’ We’re all for that — but we also want to make it better.” Noting that he signed a ten-year lease with Emancipator, King reiterates, “The vision I have for this building will be very much in line with community wellness and social integration.” The Silent String-Puller Avra Jain, who spearheaded the development plans for the property, remains involved in the Emancipator project and Vice City District but seems intent upon remaining behind the scenes. New Times’ recent attempts to reach her for com- ment have gone unanswered or parried with scheduling conflicts. King, however, praises her preservation efforts along the Biscayne Boulevard corridor in the area known as the Upper Eastside and the MiMo (shorthand for the Miami Modern style of archi- tecture) District. She’s all for everything,” he says. “Avra owns most of the properties and hotels here. She could’ve built high-rises, but instead, she pre- served Miami Modern. She’s done such a great job.” As for the project’s current status, questions remain about the bureaucratic side of things. King clarified that Jain and Emancipator LLC are communicating with all parties regarding revital- izing the area. “I have no direct information about the cur- rent situation. I know it’s ongoing,” King says. Nearly a decade after Supercar Rooms’ debut, King had intended to make a splash with Vice City District during Miami Art Week. But he forwent the splash and instead hosted a private art-meets-fashion event to celebrate Supercar Rooms’ decade in Miami, focusing on supporting local arts and building community engagement. Avra Jain’s ultimate word on King’s vision for the Emancipator property remains to be heard. Regardless, the transformation of this small, his- toric parcel hidden on the banks of the Little River behind the Sabor Tropical shopping plaza embodies the potential — and the associated ten- sions — of Miami’s ever-evolving identity. [email protected] Boatyard Brouhaha, Part 2 from p5 Inside Vice City District: Elo King walks through a mural-covered warehouse being renovated and filled with iconic cars and motorcycles. Photo by Zulekha Pitts “IT’S GOING TO BE AN AREA WHERE PEOPLE CAN COME IN, HAVE FUN, AND GET AWAY FROM THE CHORES OF EVERYDAY LIFE.”
