{"id":195198,"date":"2026-03-17T17:50:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T17:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/195198\/"},"modified":"2026-03-17T17:50:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T17:50:09","slug":"new-miami-commissioner-aims-to-restore-little-havana-pride","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/195198\/","title":{"rendered":"New Miami commissioner aims to restore Little Havana pride"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Miami<\/p>\n

Miami Commissioner Rolando Escalona is planning several programs primarily focused on beautification and maintaining Little Havana\u2019s aesthetic quality.<\/p>\n

Sherrilyn Cabrera<\/p>\n

WLRN | Jan. 10, 2026<\/p>\n

Little Havana\u2019s Calle Ocho is a cultural landmark. Every year it attracts visitors from around the globe looking to sample Miami\u2019s Cuban-American culture firsthand \u2014 drinking sweet cafecito for the first time or dancing salsa outside the historic Tower Theater.<\/p>\n

Last December, the neighborhood got its first new city commissioner in almost a decade: Rolando Escalona \u2014 a first-time politician.<\/p>\n

He moved to Miami from Cuba and has lived in the city\u2019s District 3 for the past 11 years. District 3 includes Little Havana, Shenandoah and parts of Brickell.<\/p>\n

In his first few months in office, Escalona has launched a campaign to beautify Calle Ocho (Southwest Eighth Street) by purchasing a fleet of trucks to pick up garbage. As he walks through the district, he points out abandoned shopping carts and loose trash cans that don\u2019t have city branding. He says this is all part of his mission to bring back pride in the neighborhood.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m from Havana, Cuba, and to me, to represent now this district that has Little Havana, it makes me very proud,\u201d Escalona told WLRN in an interview on Calle Ocho. \u201cIt makes me proud of the changes that we are going to bring to our community to make sure that our community is also being heard. Because for a very long time, I believe we have been neglected.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE: A decade later, plan to slow traffic and improve walkability on Calle Ocho remains in limbo<\/a><\/p>\n

From 2017 to 2025, Miami\u2019s District 3 City Commission seat was held by Joe Carollo.<\/p>\n

While Escalona did not reference his predecessor by name during the interview, he said he intends to reverse some of Carollo\u2019s decisions. One of the first changes was to hand the management of the Tower Theater back to Miami Dade College.<\/p>\n

\"Rolando Rolando Escalona talks to supporters after winning Miami\u2019s District 3 commission seat on Dec. 9, 2025. Escalona has launched a campaign to beautify Calle Ocho by purchasing a fleet of trucks to pick up garbage. Pedro Portal pportal@miamiherald.com <\/p>\n

The college previously managed the theater under a contract with the city for decades, showing Spanish-language films and hosting annual film festivals. Carollo pushed to rescind the city\u2019s contract with Miami Dade College in 2022 and have the city manage the property. Under the city\u2019s supervision, critics said the property was neglected and had little cultural programming. City officials claimed the college left the theater in poor condition.<\/p>\n

Now, Escalona said the city is in negotiations with the college to have it take the reins of the Tower Theater again but with more community input and benefits for Little Havana residents.<\/p>\n

In another reversal, Escalona has worked to return the \u201cViernes Culturales\u201d or \u201cCultural Fridays\u201d event to its historic time and venue.<\/p>\n

Viernes Culturales began in May 2000 as a musical and dance event on Calle Ocho to bring in visitors and residents to celebrate Miami\u2019s culture. Over the years, it evolved to include art exhibits, poetry and film, but was always held on the last Friday of each month at Domino Park.<\/p>\n

In 2018, however, then-Commissioner Carollo pushed out the monthly event by holding his own programming at Domino Park called \u201cLittle Havana Fridays\u201d on the last Friday of the month \u2014 Carollo had just begun a yearslong feud with William Fuller, one of the leaders of the nonprofit that runs Viernes Culturales, for supporting the former\u2019s political rival in the 2017 election. (Fuller sued Carollo in federal court for violation of his First Amendment rights and would win in 2023.)<\/p>\n

\"Miami Miami Commissioner Rolando Escalona helped hand the management of the historic Tower Theater back to Miami Dade College. Miami Dade College <\/p>\n

After he was sworn in last December, Escalona threw his support behind Viernes Culturales and allowed the nonprofit to hold its monthly events at its original place and time in Domino Park as of January.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast year we proudly celebrated our 25th Anniversary at the Historic Tower Hotel, so returning to our original date and location truly marks the beginning of an exciting new chapter for Viernes Culturales,\u201d said nonprofit Chairwoman Suzanne Batlle in a written statement.<\/p>\n

Looking toward the future, Escalona is planning several programs primarily focused on beautification and maintaining Little Havana\u2019s aesthetic quality. His ideas include a program to help homeowners pay for fa\u00e7ade repairs on their homes, an educational campaign about littering and illegal dumping and a zoning overlay to ensure new developments match the architectural style of surrounding buildings.<\/p>\n

\u201c What happens is that right now what we see is you see a beautiful 1970s building, and then you see a brand new house next to it that is a white cube. We don\u2019t want that. We want to preserve what we have,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

At a meeting on Feb. 12, city commissioners passed a resolution sponsored by Escalona to begin the process of making a Calle Ocho Business Improvement District (BID).<\/p>\n

BIDs supplement local government services within designated areas by providing additional security personnel, garbage pickups, beautification projects and the funding of initiatives to drive more visitors to the districts. These BIDs are funded through additional special assessment taxes approved by local governments. Their boards are often comprised of business leaders in the area.<\/p>\n

Miami has a number of Business Improvement Districts, including in Wynwood and Coconut Grove.<\/p>\n

Escalona claims business owners on the historic corridor approached him about creating a BID to ensure tax dollars generated on Calle Ocho stay in Calle Ocho to help revitalize the area.<\/p>\n

\u201c We have to go back to being proud of living where you live. I\u2019m gonna bring back that pride that people should have of living not only in Little Havana, but in District 3 and also in the city of Miami,\u201d Escalona said.<\/p>\n

The city administration is preparing the documentation to form a Calle Ocho BID, and the resolution will come up for an additional commission vote once that process is complete.<\/p>\n

This report was produced by Miami Herald news partner WLRN Public Media.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Miami Commissioner Rolando Escalona is planning several programs primarily focused on beautification and maintaining Little Havana\u2019s aesthetic quality.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":195199,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[90617,90616,123,23871,125,124,15335,90615,90614],"class_list":["post-195198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-domino-park","tag-little-havana-beautification","tag-miami","tag-miami-commission","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news","tag-rolando-escalona","tag-tower-theater","tag-viernes-culturales"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195198\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/195199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}