Homes and a school will be built in Hialeah Park. What does that mean for the landmark?
Change is coming to Hialeah Park.
A housing development and a school will be built on a slice of the landmark racetrack, home to thoroughbreds and a famous flock of flamingos.
Construction on the 343 homes and charter school is expected to be finished in 2024.
The development will take up 26 of the park’s 220 acres.
The racetrack, nearing its 100th birthday, evokes memories of a golden age of Hialeah, when Winston Churchill, Harry Truman, Elizabeth Taylor and Jackie Kennedy visited. In the 1980s, the opening credits of TV’s “Miami Vice” showed the park’s flamingos.
But for the past two decades, Hialeah Park has been a shadow of the past.
The track has not been fully operational because of a 2001 law that prevented it from having exclusive dates in competition with Gulfstream Park in Hallandale Beach and Calder Race Course in North Miami-Dade. Since Hialeah reopened in November 2009, only quarter-mile races have been run.
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But the changes don’t sit well with some.
“It is a tragedy that homes are going to be built in the park,” said Seth Bramson, the city’s historian and author of “The Curtiss-Bright Cities: Hialeah, Miami Springs & Opa Locka.”
Bramson said Hialeah Park “brought people to the city” and that now “the city should have found a way to preserve it.”
Eighteen years ago, then-councilman Roberto Casas also appealed to the city to prevent the construction of buildings in the park.
“I think we should find money from the state and federal government to buy the track and turn it into a national park,” Casas said. “It is a piece of history. I don’t think we should build on it.”
But in 2013, Hialeah council members approved zoning changes, which got final approval just last year.
About the Hialeah Park project
The housing developement: The Brunetti family has owned Hialeah Park since the 1970s. John Brunetti Jr. has partnered with developer Prestige Companies and education company Mater Academy to develop the project.
Just east of the racetrack, Prestige plans to build 343 rental units in a cluster of two-story townhomes and three-story garden-style apartment buildings on 12.6 acres along East Fourth Avenue between 22nd and 30th streets.
The residential development will have 702 parking spaces and a 4,100-square-foot recreational clubhouse.
The Hialeah Park residences, called Flamingo Village, will feature two clubhouses, a fitness center and a community pool.
“The construction of the residences in Hialeah Park will give life to the area. It will revitalize it,” Alexander Ruiz, director of Prestige Companies, told el Nuevo Herald. “It will allow the presence of pedestrians in the area. Nowadays you never see a person walking. It will help generate more use of the Metrorail, as well as improve transit access.”
Historic parts of the racetrack will be preserved, according to planning documents.
The school: Mater Academy will run a K-12 charter school over 12 acres, with a capacity of 2,950 students.
According to the ordinance approved for its construction, the architectural aesthetics of the school building will be inspired by the designs of Lester Geisler, the original architect of Hialeah Park.
“The Geisler-era buildings in the 1930s were adorned in a French Provençal style, which Mater Academy’s architectural direction will commit to respect, while maintaining its own, contemporary language,” according to the school’s plans.
In addition to state-licensed horse racing and casino operations, the special zoning district for Hialeah Park allows for uses ranging from hotels, restaurants and nightclubs to a supermarket and a bowling alley. A later project designed for another of the park’s vacant areas would be planned as an entertainment area.
Years of debate over the park’s future
This is not the first time that Brunetti has sought to diversify Hialeah Park.
In 2004, the council rejected plans for residential, retail and offices proposed for the racetrack. The plans also called for turning the track clubhouse into a concert hall, cultural center or library.
Three years later, Brunetti sought other development approvals from the South Florida Regional Planning Council. But a group of residents stepped up in protest.
Residents created Citizens to Save Hialeah Park to block the council from changing the park’s zoning to allow residential and commercial development.
The group managed to persuade the National Trust for Historic Preservation to designate Hialeah Park as one of the 11 “Most Endangered Places” in the United States.
Although Citizens to Save Hialeah Park no longer exists, Milly Herrera, one of its members, is still an advocate of the park. She told el Nuevo Herald that “Hialeah racetrack is lost in part because of politicians who don’t measure the consequences of their actions.”
For Herrera, the responsibility also falls on the residents.
“Today we have a population that is mostly ignorant of the history of our city and the significance of the racetrack.”
Opposing visions
The Hialeah Park proposal was approved 6-1 by the council in September 2021. Council member Mónica Pérez, the lone vote against the project, told el Nuevo Herald that she voted no because she was “upset that they were removing the Australian pine trees, which were over 100 years old, and I was worried that traffic would increase. I also did not agree as a teacher, that there was a school so close to a casino.”
For the councilwoman, a better proposal for the area would have been to establish a mixed zone with entertainment, like Gulfstream.
“Only those who live there or the students who go to that charter school will benefit from this development, but not the rest of the residents,” she said. “It will be a piece of land used only by a group and not for the community.”
Councilman Jesús Tundidor said the need for housing and an entertainment district in Hialeah motivated his vote. He thinks this development will allow greater access to public transportation and development of the area.
“The historic property of the racetrack, which is already protected by Florida law, will be preserved,” he said. “The construction of the buildings and the school will take place in the vacant areas of Hialeah Park.
“There will be a separation of spaces so that the residential and school areas don’t have an internal connection with the casino,” he said.
Since March 2, 1979, the racetrack has been included in the National Register of Historic Places. However, that protection is limited only to the horse racing area, not to the entire park.
What about the flamingos?
Tundidor said that “the flamingos won’t be deprived of their space.”
But along Fourth Avenue, where the residences will be built, the Australian pines have been cut down, and the proximity to the wetlands where the flamingos live worries residents about what kind of effect the construction will have on the pink birds.
Hialeah Park has become so famous for its flocks of flamingos that the National Audubon Society has officially designated it a sanctuary for the American flamingo.
James Dunster, curator of birds at Zoo Miami, said he doesn’t think that the construction of houses will have a big effect on the Hialeah flamingos.
“They are used to a lot of activity with horse racing,” he said. “There may be a reaction to construction noise at first, but once they get used to it, it should be part of their routine.”
On cutting down trees, Peter Frederick, research professor of ecology and wildlife conservation at the University of Florida, explained that “flamingos are wetland specialists. Trees are not very important to flamingos because they don’t perch on them.”
Dunster explained that “the loss of the trees should not affect the birds in any way, since their natural habitat is open areas without many trees nearby. What they have in the park is good for the flamingos. They have a great water source to wade and feed on and they also have some islands where they can build their nests and lay eggs.”
However, in December 2022 something peculiar happened with the flamingos from the park. Two birds were found dead in a Miami Springs clay quarry, owned by the Miami-Dade County Water and Sewer Department, nearly two miles from Hialeah Park.
During the last weeks of December, Ken Wilde, historian with the Miami Springs Historical Society and Museum, has witnessed how flamingos are flying toward his city.
He visited Hialeah Park and saw several foxes at sunset, when a flock of flamingos was leaving the park toward Miami Springs.
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