Preservation board approves Bass Museum's new gallery and Collins Park splash pad art

Miami Beach’s Historic Preservation Board on Tuesday approved the Bass Museum of Art’s plan for a new gallery building and raised plaza in Collins Park, along with three outdoor artworks for the park and a digital kiosk on Washington Avenue. Each passed 4-0, according to the meeting’s video and transcript.

The votes come from the city’s auto-generated transcript of the Nov. 10 meeting. The board’s written order and minutes were not posted as of Wednesday morning.

The gallery. The museum, at 2100/2111 Collins Ave., plans about 4,029 square feet of new building, a raised platform of roughly 12,534 square feet and a canopy on the southwest corner of its campus, designed by Johnston Marklee, as Red Sidewalks reported before the hearing. The motion was to approve the plan as presented while trying to save a tree listed as No. 86, and the applicant said it would update its plans to keep the tree in place if possible. Staff noted that a waiver of off-street parking still needs City Commission approval; the transcript doesn’t show the board acting on it.

The park art. The board approved a splash pad of about 2,500 square feet built around a Lawrence Weiner text work, a marble sculpture by Adrian Villar Rojas near the museum entrance and the relocation of a Susan Philipsz sound piece. Board members asked for more seating than the one bench shown at the splash pad and room for trucks to pass the sculpture, and a neighbor asked that the sound stay contained; the applicants said they were looking at the seating and that the sound would stay concentrated and the sculpture would leave room for trucks.

The kiosk. An IKE Smart City kiosk at Washington Avenue and 16th Street, the third of three the commission approved for the Washington Avenue and Española Way corridors, also passed. The applicant said it would work with the city to move a bike rack the kiosk displaces.

The board continued a single-family home application at 1835 Michigan Ave. to its Dec. 15 meeting.