The Miami Beach Parks & Recreation Department paid $22.4 million to redesign and rebuild South Pointe Park, which reopened on March 22, 2009, after two years of construction. The money was well-spent. With its scenic location, attractive landscaping, and user-friendly recreational facilities, the new 17.5-acre park is sure to gain enduring popularity with residents and visitors alike.

City officials are comparing it to New York’s Central Park and Chicago’s Millennium Park. Now, they say, Miami Beach has its own world-class park. The comparison is apt.

South Pointe Park parallels the Government Cut shipping channel between the Atlantic Ocean and the marinas along the Biscayne Bay shoreline. The park’s scenic “cut-walk” beside Government Cut connects with other walkways along the bay and the ocean beach to create a pedestrian-friendly path around the south end of the city. The walkway is a tabby-shell aggregate with natural keystone banding.

At night, 18 custom-made light towers illuminate the 20-foot-wide cut-walk for pedestrians without attracting the attention of baby sea turtles, which would mistake normal city lights for the stars and moon and turn inland instead of out to sea. The towers glow in different colors, making each visit to the park a different experience.

Take a tour

As you enter South Pointe Park at the foot of Washington Avenue, you’ll pass a plaza with a fountain. When you reach the cut-walk, turn right to enjoy an awesome view.

In the distance to the west, the jagged skyline of downtown Miami forms a spectacular backdrop to the Port of Miami’s huge gantry cranes, which remind me of the Imperial walkers from the Star Wars movies. Across Government Cut stand the posh condos of the exclusive Fisher Island residential community.

Near the west end of the park, visit a small inlet where you can look down into the water and see corals growing. William H. Cary, assistant director of the Miami Beach planning department, says the inlet predates development of the park and was retained at the behest of state officials to protect the coral colony.

Children on climbing apparatus
in the playground. © 2009 George Leposky

While strolling the cut-walk, you’ll see all manner of watercraft – from tiny jet-skis to the largest cargo freighters and cruise ships – passing at close range.

About halfway along the cut-walk is Smith & Wollensky, an upscale traditional steakhouse that is one of nine such restaurants in major cities around the U.S. Its presence predates the park renovation.

Initially built in 1986 as part of an urban redevelopment program, South Pointe Park had few recreational facilities, and part of the land beside Government Cut was a parking lot. Now the parking has moved well inland, except for a small valet lot directly behind the restaurant.

Play area and dunes

Each end of the cut-walk connects to a serpentine walkway that meanders away from the water through verdant landscaping. Park officials say you can burn 55 calories by walking the entire mile-long circuit at three miles an hour, 85 calories by jogging at five miles an hour, or 100 calories by running at eight miles an hour.

Originally the park was flat. As part of the redesign, Hargreaves Associates landscape architects built a raised berm and planted hundreds of trees, representing 25 salt-tolerant species; and 34 different types of shrubs, accent plants, and ground cover. The lawns are Paspalum grass, the same salt-tolerant grass planted on the city’s golf courses.

The serpentine walkway follows the berm, rising 14 feet to a bridge that connects with the roof of a 7,000-square-foot multi-use pavilion. The rooftop deck overlooks the park, offering another striking view of the ship traffic in Government Cut. The deck’s structures resemble cruise-ship chimneys.

The pavilion houses a snack bar, meeting room, restrooms, and park offices. Beside it, a playground includes a metal forest of water-spray jets, a climbing apparatus, and a “sand-dollar spinner” – a small merry-go-round that looks like a sand dollar. Cary says the soft surface around the playground equipment, installed to minimize the risk of injury when young children fall, consists of recycled rubber up to four inches thick.

To the east, the serpentine walkway descends into natural sand dunes. The dunes have been replanted with native vegetation that helps to anchor them and secure the beach against erosion. At the ocean end of the cut-walk, you’ll have a panoramic view facing north across the dunes to the beach; east to the jetty and open ocean; south to Fisher Island, Virginia Key, and Key Biscayne; and west along the length of the park to the port and downtown Miami.
 

Skaters on a path beside the dunes, at the east end of
the serpentine walkway. © 2009 George Leposky 

This view will become even more exciting in the months ahead. When a fishing pier nearing completion at the east end of the cut-walk opens for use, you’ll be able to walk parallel to the jetty several hundred feet farther east, stand over the water, and look straight down at the waves.

 Do’s and don’ts

South Pointe Park is dog-friendly, providing plastic bags and trash cans for dog waste in several locations – but dogs must be kept on a leash.

Fishing from shore is officially not permitted, though my wife and I saw several people doing it. Perhaps enforcement will begin once the fishing pier opens.

Other prohibitions include alcoholic beverages, camping, cooking, bicycles, skateboards, organized team sports, and other high-impact activities that could disrupt other users’ enjoyment of the park.

South Pointe Park is open daily from sunrise to 10 PM, and the cut-walk stays open until 2 AM. Admission is free. If you come by car, a public parking lot along the north edge of the park charges $1.25 an hour, or you can use iPark, the city’s new in-vehicle parking meter.  In addition to the main entrance at Washington Avenue, a new pedestrian entrance is now open on Ocean Drive.