In recent years, Cultural Arts Districts have gained popularity in the arsenal of tools being usedfor economic revitalization and to address the cultural and aesthetic needs of a particular city or neighborhood. Districts vary in size and character, but all are intended to achieve livable, active and perhaps more affordable areas, incorporating theaters, museums, galleries, book stores, performance and art centers, artist, photography and design studios, live/work spaces for musicians, writers, dancers and related fields and disciplines.

In 2006, Mayor David Dermer formed a Blue Ribbon Committee to help guide the creation of a Cultural Arts Neighborhood District Overlay (CANDO) in Miami Beach. In October 2006, the City Commission unanimously approved the first Cultural Arts Neighborhood District Overlay in the city’s history.

More than 30 artists, developers, hoteliers, property owners and representatives of art and cultural venues and organizations, including ArtCenter/South Florida, New World Symphony, Miami Beach Arts Trust, Cultural Arts Council, Bass Museum, Miami City Ballet, Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau, Miami Beach Botanical Garden, Wolfsonian/FIU, Urban Environmental League, Knight Foundation, Collins Park Neighborhood Association, and Art Basel Miami Beach, helped compose the Blue Ribbon Committee that has been the catalyst to help spur the district that includes arts-related mixed use and community gathering.

The CANDO arts neighborhood is bounded by Dade Boulevard and 24th Street on the north, Lenox Avenue on the west, Lincoln Lane South on the south, and the Atlantic Ocean on the east.

Tax benefits and/or zoning incentives will be explored for property owners who can house artists, writers, musicians, dancers, and designers who desire to live and work their craft within CANDO. The goal is to reverse the common cycle of pricing out artists, smaller galleries and those cutting-edge cultural activities that were often at the forefront of turning many of the newly redeveloped neighborhoods into successful places to invest, live, work and play.