It was the place to see and be seen.
The Mandarin Oriental Hotel was once Miami’s hottest spot, a place where celebrities stayed, and foodies flocked to restaurants such as La Mar and Azul. Now it’s coming down, just 26 years after it was built.
Officials revealed their plans for the implosion of the hotel in Brickell Key to make way for a new and improved hotel.
The implosion is scheduled for 8:30 a.m. Sunday, and residents on Brickell Key will have to leave the island by 7 a.m. on implosion day.
They’ve already cleared out the insides to prepare the building for the implosion, which is actually called a “controlled energetic felling.”
“I think it’s gonna have a big wow factor and I think everybody needs to know that there’s as much an artistic component as there is an engineering component, so not only is it pretty to watch, but there’s an awful lot of planning and engineering and choreography of explosives that come together to make this go successfully,” said Ivy Fradin of the BG Group, the company doing the demolition.
The dust will dissipate within minutes, and the debris, Fradin says, will stay within the footprint of the project.
The island will be shut down from 7:30 a.m. until roughly 1:30 p.m., depending on how soon the dust dissipates. No one is allowed onto or off the island, but the fire department is ready for any emergencies.
“We’ll be here on scene, we’re gonna have eight units, we’re also gonna have our fireboat on the water so in the event we do have a medical emergency, and we need to transport a patient, we’ll be able to use our fireboat in case we need to so there’s no delays in the transport,” said Lt. Pete Sanchez of Miami Fire-Rescue.
There are no restrictions on the mainland, anyone can watch the implosion safely from vantage points across the water.
Anyone who lives within 800 feet of the building, in what they call the exclusion zone, is being asked to stay inside their apartments with windows and doors closed to protect their hearing during the blast.
“Gravity brings the building down so there’s no flying debris, it’s a progressive failure of the building coming down to ground level,” Fradin explained.
In the building’s place, a new Mandarin Oriental will rise, with hotel rooms and residences.
The Mandarin Oriental opened in 2000 but is being demolished to make way for The Residences at Mandarin Oriental, Miami, a two-tower ultra-luxury residential and hospitality development.
The new development will feature a 66-story South Tower with 228 private residences and a 34-story North Tower with 70 private residences, 28 turnkey Hotel Collection residences, and 121 hotel guestrooms.