Have you seen Homestead Florida lately?

From farm town to boom town

Although it's 92 years old and the survivor of four hurricanes, Homestead is just reaching its prime

BY NATHALIE GOUILLOU

Perhaps people used to just zoom through it on their way to the Florida Keys or only stop by for a couple of hours at a U-pick farm.

But today, Homestead is a long way from the agricultural town it once was, and people no longer stop only on their way to somewhere else. Homestead has become a South Florida destination and an alternative for many escaping the more crowded and expensive areas of Miami-Dade County.

Once a year people flock to the city's speedway to watch NASCAR drivers roar around the track -- a top-drawing spectator event that has catapulted the city into a national spotlight.

Longtime residents beam at the sight of an F-16 racing through the skies, and city leaders hail their unique tourism location -- between Everglades and Biscayne National parks.

Yet 12 ½ years ago, a giant stomped on Homestead, uprooting trees, flattening homes and turning the city into a war zone.

The 92-year-old community -- which has endured four devastating hurricanes -- picked up the rubble and rebuilt itself into what Homestead's current mayor, Roscoe Warren, likes to call ``Florida's finest location.''

However it's viewed, there is no doubt Homestead is once more a boom town.
A drive east on Campbell Drive will reveal many construction sites, dozens of workers with their building materials and bulldozers, creating more Homestead.

One of the prime undertakings: the new Homestead Hospital. In 2003, Homestead Hospital announced it would relocate to Campbell Drive and expand to a five-story building with 120 beds. It will be the first new hospital in Miami-Dade County in more than a decade.

The $130 million facility, part of Baptist Health South Florida, is expected to be finished in late 2006.

In what is one of the largest developments in the city, Lennar, Prime and Pride Homes builders are erecting the Malibu Bay planned-unit development, slated to be completed by 2009 with 251 single-family homes, 257 town houses, 624 condominiums, lakes with pedestrian paths, a private club house and a recreation center.

''What we have coming up are planned urban developments,'' Warren said. ``These are gated communities. They have parks, areas to walk, some even have space for schools.''

According to Tim Williams, consultant for the Malibu Bay developers, a large number of the homes have been sold and people are already moving in.
''It's a different looking project with a California-type look,'' Williams said.

More homes in the Campbell Drive area east of downtown are also scheduled to pop up with construction of the Waterstone planned-unit development's second phase, which will bring 1,126 single-family homes and town houses to the area.

Phase I of the development, with 1,058 planned units -- which Williams said have all been sold -- is located west of Southwest 137th Avenue.

Many other residential projects on the east side of town are also under way. In all, a total of 14,500 units are expected to go up within 10 years.

''We don't want to be considered a bedroom community, we want to be a city where people can live, raise a family, work, grow and develop,'' Warren said. ``Now we have to balance in terms of businesses and how to offer residents all the quality of life.''

The Miami-Dade Department of Planning and Zoning estimates 2.84 people would live in each space -- which would more than double Homestead's population of nearly 32,000 by 2010.

Schools that are already overcrowded will need additional room, and existing fire stations will need backup to keep pace with the residential boom. Homestead leaders say they have taken both these issues into account.

In 2004, the city proposed meeting the expected influx of students by building its own schools using funding from new developments.

''The city is being proactive,'' said Vice Mayor Lynda Bell, who now spearheads the push for the creation of an Educational Facilities Benefit District. ``Without it, I don't know what we're going to do. You can't double the size of the city and not add a school.''

The idea is to create a district in a city with a lot of new development and use the impact fees to help build schools the school system can't. Money would also come from families buying the new homes. They must agree -- by signing a disclosure agreement -- to pay an additional $180 a year in assessments, with a 2 percent increase per year, for 30 years.

Before coming to fruition, the plan -- approved by the Miami-Dade School Board -- would have to complete one last step: getting County Commission approval.
Although Homestead's school project is still pending the commission's OK, the county fire department responded much faster to the city's need for additional fire stations and is currently working on two new stations.

With a budget of nearly $4.5 million to build and equip the future stations, Miami-Dade fire officials said each will have an advanced medical unit.

Although the two sites -- located at Southwest 166th Avenue and Palm Drive and Southwest 152nd Avenue and 320th Street -- won't be up and running for another two to three years, they are expected to be operating by the time most of Homestead's newest residential developments are completed.

New businesses and entertainment sites are also under way. By the end of the year, residents could find themselves shopping at the Publix at Waterstone Plaza on the corner of Southwest 288th Street and 137th Avenue -- which will also include, among other stores, a Walgreens and a Blockbuster Video -- or at the BJ's Wholesale Club at the corner of Sixth Avenue and North Canal Drive.

Last year, Warren also pleasantly surprised residents when he announced that Flagship Cinemas would bring in a 40,000-square-foot movie theater that would have stadium seating with about 2,400 seats, 14 screens and digital sound.

The city's long-awaited $8 million movie theater -- Homestead lost its only cinema to Andrew and since then, moviegoers have had to trek to Cutler Ridge, The Falls and Kendall to see films -- is slated to open by late spring.

Hope that the city also known as a former military community would see its Air Reserve Base rebuffed -- and saved from this year's round of base closures -- resurfaced when an elite U.S. military unit relocated to the base in early May, completing a move from the Naval Station Roosevelt Roads in Puerto Rico.

Recently, a U.S. Coast Guard unit also claimed some turf at the base as their own, which some city leaders saw as a sign that the base isn't about to shut down.
''Rather than an air reserve, it's a full, active national security, that's really what [the base] is taking the flavor of,'' said Councilman Jeffrey Porter.

Last year, city officials also lobbied Washington in an effort to turn Homestead base into the new home of the U.S. Southern Command, the command responsible for all U.S. military activities on the land and waters of Latin America south of Mexico. Those headquarters are now in Doral.

A symbol of the city's rebirth can also be seen in officials' plans for a sparkling new City Hall in the west side of town, close to the downtown area.

''I feel great about where we are today. We have a comprehensive plan . . . ,'' Warren said. ``Ten years from now, I'll be excited. We would have done it the right way.''