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Miami Beach May Demolish Theater For New Convention Center District

MIAMI BEACH (CBS4) – A new convention center district could be coming for Miami Beach, but it might mean tearing down The Fillmore Miami Beach at Jackie Gleason Theater.

CBS4 News partner The Miami Herald reports Miami Beach's Planning Board believes with the new 52-acre convention center district, about 300 new housing units would be a necessity to help make the area more up and coming.

Tuesday, the planning board voted to send its recommendations on how the site in the heart of South Beach should be developed to city commissioners.

The four board members at Tuesday's meeting were Chairman Charles Urstadt, Jack Johnson, Robert Wolfarth and Henry Stolar.

So far, two teams are up for the billion-dollar project and commissioners will choose one of them July 17.

The two finalists are South Beach ACE led by New York-based Tishman Hotel and Reality and Portman-CMC led by Atlanta-based Portman Holdings.

Both recommend new housing.

ACE's proposal has four buildings along Meridian Avenue and two of them would be 120-feet-tall.

Portman's plan also has four buildings, but they would all be 60-feet-tall.

The Miami Beach Planning Board recommends demolishing The Fillmore Miami Beach at the Jackie Gleason Theater siting that the structure has been altered over the years and lost any historic value it once had.

However, both of the teams vying for the job to develop the new convention center district propose retaining and restoring the theater.

Both teams also have ideas for where ballrooms should be placed and how they could play a role in bringing new life to the convention center district.

Portman's ideas include a freestanding ballroom building while ACE's plan brings ballrooms into the convention center building.

The recommendations are meant to help guide the Miami Beach City Commission's decision.

Residents will get a chance to bring up their concerns in a November referendum.

(©2013 CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. CBS4 news partner The Miami Herald contributed material for this report.)

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