Miami's new skyline. Interactive map!

Then there is the other factor, anecdotal and unquantifiable: the speculator.

''As much as 85 percent of all condominium sales in [downtown Miami] are accounted for by investors and speculators,'' housing analysts at investment firm Raymond James warned in a March report.

Banks have started to back off lending on condo projects, or have instituted new rules to avoid giving mortgages to investors.

Spiegelman sold the condo units in the Marina Blue condo going up on Biscayne Boulevard.

''One hundred percent of the buyers were investors and speculators,'' he said. ``Anyone who tells you their projects are different are deluding themselves.'"

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Some skeptics, noting the high condo prices and the out-of-town provenance of buyers, fear that instead of the diverse, working 24-hour downtown that city leaders envision, the boom will instead create a seasonal playground for the rich, a Monte Carlo on Biscayne Bay.

''I bet those buildings are going to be empty a lot of the time,'' said Joel Kotkin, an urban historian and consultant who has written about the rise of what he calls ''ephemeral cities'' -- places like San Francisco, Berlin and parts of New York that increasingly cater to the rich, the childless young and tourists.

''Maybe this is Miami's karma, to be this kind of place, a temporary, hip, cool, nomadic population serviced by a poor population,'' said Kotkin, author of The City: A Global History. But, he added: ``History shows a city has to maintain some sense of a middle-class character if it wants to thrive.''

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lauderdalegator said:

That's great. Why is the 330 Biscayne project only around 650ft tall. Did I miss something?

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^ Thanks for making sure we heard from the hand-whringers.

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These are just great big cash registers'

By ANDRES VIGLUCCI

[email protected]

Buildings speak.

To Vincent Scully, the eminent architecture critic and historian, the best ones speak eloquently of human aspirations and human experience.

But on a bright recent morning, as Scully viewed the expanding skyline of downtown Miami and Brickell from an overlook on Virginia Key, the buildings stood mute.

''It's getting to look like one big megastructure. There's just so much of it. What can you say?'' Scully said, wagging his hands over the mass of skyscrapers across the water as if to conjure up its meaning.

Finally the words came in a rush.

''It's daring, greed, vitality, optimism . . . enormous confidence,'' Scully said. ``This is still an American frontier town. This is globalization.''

As he picked out individual towers and contemplated the multiplicity of cranes portending more and bigger buildings, Scully found little to love.

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logybogy said:

The projects were likely chopped by the FAA. There were articles around the time the 1200 foot empire world project came out that mentioned buildings on biscayne being limited to 650ft.

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Dale said:

^ I'm fairly sure this is laziness on the part of the Herald.

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