Art Basel Inks 5-Year Deal With Miami Beach

MIAMI BEACH, FL — With the $615 million expansion and upgrade to the Miami Beach Convention Center less than a year away, city officials locked in Art Basel for at least five more years starting in 2019. Miami Beach officials signed a long-term agreement with the internationally recognized show on Thursday afternoon. December marks the 16th season for the event in Miami Beach, attracting art enthusiasts, socialites and celebrities from around the world.

"There you go. It's done," said Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine as he signed the contract on Thursday afternoon along with City Manager Jimmy Morales and a representative of Art Basel.

“This agreement is comparable to locking in the Super Bowl for five years," Levine said ahead of Thursday's signing ceremony. “Economists estimate $400 to $500 million in related economic impact as a result of this contemporary art fair convening artists, galleries, collectors, museum groups and others individuals interested in top notch art from around the world.”

The long-term lease will begin in 2019, but is also includes an option for Art Basel to extend the lease for an additional five-year period. The contract gives the art show exclusive use of the entire convention center, including a new 60,000 square foot multi-level ballroom, meeting space and the historic Carl Fisher Club House. City officials said that an integral component of the agreement involved installing an elevator and escalator to give show goers a direct connection between the exhibition halls and the grand ballroom on the second floor. (Sign up for our free Daily Newsletters and Breaking News AlTerts for the Miami Beach Patch.)

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“We are delighted to extend our longstanding relationship with the City of Miami Beach and look forward to hosting Art Basel in the newly renovated, state-of-the art Convention Center for many years to come,” added Art Basel's Director for North America, Noah Horowitz. “Since our inaugural edition in 2002, the city's unwavering support has helped make our show in Miami Beach what it is today: a global event and the leading art fair of the Americas, attracting an international audience of 77,000 from across the world each year. We are deeply grateful to the city for their ongoing commitment to Art Basel in Miami Beach and look forward with great anticipation to this next chapter together."

Prominent Miami area businessman Norman Braman, who chairs the Miami Beach Host Committee for Art Basel, congratulated city officials on the long-term deal. “Kudos to the Miami Beach Officials and the Art Basel team that are now guaranteeing that Miami Beach and Miami-Dade will host the premier art fair in North America for years to come.”

The nearly 60-year-old convention center is on target to be finished next August and also on budget, according to Levine. The facility suffered approximately $450,000 in primarily roof damage from the record rains that brought flooding to Miami Beach over the summer but did not experience any significant damage during Hurricane Irma.

"We’re ready to host Art Basel and we can’t wait," Levine told Patch as his city sprang back to life after Hurricane Irma. "We’ve done some initial assessments and we have not seen any significant damage. Of course there could be minor damage there. As we go in and assess deeper we’ll look at that and see but we don’t expect any delays on the construction of the convention center at this time."

The convention center sits on a 25-acre site in South Beach. The expansion and renovation is scheduled to be substantially completed by Aug. 8, 2018. The city also expects that the Convention Center will be able to earn a Leeds Silver rating from the United States Green Building Council, which will give the city independent verification that the building is environmentally friendly.

The overall project will add some 300,000 square feet to the building for a total of 1,450,000 square feet. Officials said that some of the old parking areas will be converted into a new public park. One of the more challenging aspects of the project involved raising the 500,000 square foot exhibit hall floors by another several inches to protect it against against flooding.

That involved tearing apart the old concrete flooring and carting it away.

"All this was ripped out and raised," Maria Hernandez, the city's project director for the convention center told Patch during a recent tour of the site. "There were massive piles of debris. When we tore that whole thing down, 96 percent of it has been diverted or recycled. It’s a pretty big deal under our Leeds program to recycle. One hundred percent of the concrete was recycled. All the slabs that we ripped out, they were 9 inches thick. So that’s a lot of concrete."

In addition to Art Basel, Levine told Patch that the city hopes to attract other important events that it couldn't host in the past.

"One of the core competencies of what Miami Beach and what Miami is about is we are great hosts," said Levine wearing a hardhat and construction vest as he toured the site. "There's nothing like this in South Florida. I think this is something that’s just so spectacular and so different as you can see. It’s unique. It’s different. It took a lot of great creativity, a lot of hard work and an amazing team led by Maria."

Levine added that conventions are critical to the city's economy.

"When you have a convention center like this it’s not necessarily a profit center by itself, but what it does it generates business for all of our hotels, all our restaurants," the mayor said. "You can imagine when these conferences come in they want 2-,3-,4-, 5,000 rooms. What do these people do? They come here during the day. They go to restaurants at night. They go to restaurants on Lincoln Road. They stay at our hotels. They generate tremendous bed tax and They’re great for the economy."

Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine surveys the construction at the Miami Beach Convention Center. Photo by Paul Scicchitano.