3 January 25-31, 2024 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com New Times | Contents | Letters | news | night+Day | CuLture | Cafe | MusiC | MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2008 miaminewtimes.com MIAMI NEW TIMES | CONTENTS | LETTERS | RIPTIDE | METRO | NIGHT+DAY | STAGE | ART | FILM | CAFE | MUSIC | ▼ INDIAN CREEK POOR LITTLE RICH PEOPLE MIAMI BILLIONAIRES ARE “GENTRIFYING” MILLIONAIRES OUT OF INDIAN CREEK. BY ALEX DELUCA T hese days, in Miami’s wealthiest enclaves, it’s no longer good enough to be just rich. You need to be filthy rich. The teensy, exclusive island community of Indian Creek Village, tucked off the coast of Miami Beach, was built in the early 1900s for Miami’s rich and famous. The gated and guarded stretch of roughly 40 lots has since become a haven to some of the world’s wealthiest. On any given day, you might find Ivanka Trump, DJ David Guetta, or football legend Tom Brady tooling around the refuge. One might assume the island is immune to the economic forces plaguing the commoners on Miami’s mainland, where rising property prices are forcing countless working-class lo- cals out of the area. But as the rich get richer and Miami con- tinues to attract ultra-wealthy newcomers, Indian Creek is experiencing “its own version of gentrification” — with billionaires displac- ing the neighborhood’s millionaires, accord- ing to a new Bloomberg report. “The merely affluent are now being dis- placed by the fabulously wealthy,” the report reads. Real estate broker Dina Goldentayer, who has been involved in three of the island’s five most recent sales, tells Bloomberg that prices for homes revamped to the “standards of bil- lionaires in Indian Creek” may soon start at $100 million. In decades past, by contrast, homes on the island readily sold for well under $10 million. Investor and short seller Carl Icahn bought his Indian Creek house for $7.5 million in 1997, and around 30 years ago, Colombian bil- lionaire Jaime Gilinski shelled out $6 million for a property on the island, where he now owns several parcels. Goldentayer explained that the real estate market on Indian Creek, known as “Billion- aire Bunker,” has shifted from just seven years ago when “there would be five or six listings at the same time and $20 million was a big sale.” Back across the bay, Miami residents are being pushed out of more humble abodes on a mass scale. Since 2019, rental prices have increased more in Miami than nearly any other major metro area, according to Zillow. One study found that the average renter in Miami must make a six-figure salary to avoid becoming “rent-burdened” (i.e., spending more than 30 percent of personal income on rent). Property prices nationwide have been climbing in recent years, but South Florida outpaced the rise in U.S. housing costs by a wide margin thanks to heavy demand from foreign investors and a COVID-19-era deluge of affluent new arrivals from out of state. During the pandemic, the well-to-do and wealthy flocked to the Miami metro area and Florida as a whole, seeking tax breaks and a tropical climate in which to live while working remotely. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Florida had the largest population growth of any state in the 2021-2022 reporting period. Silicon Valley billionaires like PayPal co- founder Peter Thiel were part of an influx of “big-money migrants” to Miami during this time, earning the city the nickname “Little Manhattan.” In June 2022, one of the wealthiest hedge fund operators in the world, Ken Griffin, announced that he would be moving his firm Citadel’s head- quarters to Miami. In August 2023, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos bought his first property in Indian Creek Village – a $68 million estate next to the home of hedge fund manager Edward Lampert. Bezos then snapped up a neighbor- ing $79 million, seven-bedroom mansion in October, bringing his total investment in In- dian Creek property to $147 million. | RIPTIDE | GET MORE NEWS & COMMENTARY AT MIAMINEWTIMES.COM/NEWS Jeff Bezos announced in November 2023 that he was moving to Miami from Seattle. Photo by Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images ▼ CORAL GABLES DON’T HARP ON IT UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI SETTLES MASTER MUSICIAN’S GENDER DISCRIMINATION CASE. BY IZZY KAPNICK T he University of Miami has opted against going to trial in a court battle with harp- ist Laura Sherman, settling a civil case in which she claimed the school denied her fair pay as part of a pattern of blatantly shortchanging female employees on their salaries. Sherman, who has played the harp in Broad- way shows and toured the world with Barbra Streisand, voluntarily dismissed the case against the University of Miami in December after the parties reached a confidential settlement. Filed in October 2022, Sherman’s lawsuit ar- gued that her workload was the same or heavier than her male counterparts but that she received significantly lower wages. She pointed to the uni- versity’s own study completed in 2018 (a year be- fore she joined as an instructor), which reported that salary for male, non-tenured associate pro- fessors averaged $215,159, nearly $68,000 more than their female counterparts at the school. According to the study, the school of music was among the university departments with the most glaring pay discrepancies between men and women. Male lecturers received a $61,491 salary, whereas their female colleagues made $18,000 less at $43,061 on average in the music school. The University of Miami sought to dismiss the case on the grounds that the study, while issued in 2018, used data that predated Sherman’s em- ployment by two years. The school further claimed she was improp- erly comparing the pay of men and women with similar job titles instead of drilling down to specifics of whether their job responsibilities were the same. Sherman maintained that the large pay gaps outlined in the report persisted during her em- ployment and that her lawsuit described them in detail, with specific comparisons between her job role and those of her better-paid male peers. She told the court the school had a new salary study but refused to turn it over. “This discrepancy which was present prior to plaintiff being hired for defendant was never rec- tified, and the issues continued to date as evi- denced by plaintiff’s wage disparity,” an amended complaint argued. Judge David Miller denied the university’s motion to dismiss in January 2023, opening a path to trial for Sherman. But after jousting in court for the better part of last year, Sherman and the school notified the judge in December that they had reached a settlement following a mediation conference. The settlement was recorded on the docket roughly two weeks after the judge set the case for a now-canceled jury trial. As with many civil case settlements, the de- tails of the deal are confidential and not dis- closed in the court file. Sherman’s lawyer, Daniel Hunt, declined to comment when reached by New Times. The case had sought damages for violations of the Equal Pay Act and the Florida Civil Rights Act. Sherman was hired as a lecturer at the uni- versity in July 2019 at a $30,000 salary. She made $41,000 the following academic year and, as of 2022, earned a $44,500 salary, according to the complaint. She is still listed as the head of the Frost School of Music’s harp department. Recent pic- tures on social media show her posing with pu- pils and congratulating young players on their performances at a University of Miami recital hall in Coral Gables. The University of Miami has litigated similar claims of gender-based salary discrimination in the past. In 2019, the university settled a case brought by Sung Hee Joo, an assistant professor of envi- ronmental engineering, who claimed the school was paying male professors thousands more than women with the same title and experience were receiving. Another lawsuit against the university over alleged gender discrimination in teacher salaries went to trial in March 2022. In that case, brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commis- sion on behalf of a political science professor, a jury found in favor of the university, rejecting claims it had violated the Equal Pay Act. [email protected] THE UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI HAS LITIGATED SIMILAR CLAIMS OF GENDER- BASED SALARY DISCRIMINATION IN THE PAST.
