{"id":32494,"date":"2025-11-04T08:40:31","date_gmt":"2025-11-04T08:40:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/32494\/"},"modified":"2025-11-04T08:40:31","modified_gmt":"2025-11-04T08:40:31","slug":"miami-beachs-new-underwater-sculpture-park-revives-coral-reef","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/32494\/","title":{"rendered":"Miami Beach’s new underwater sculpture park revives coral reef"},"content":{"rendered":"

MIAMI BEACH, Fla. (AP) \u2014 South Florida is seeing a wave of new cars, but they won\u2019t add to traffic or lengthen anyone\u2019s commute. That\u2019s because the cars are made of marine-grade concrete and were installed underwater.<\/p>\n

Over several days late last month, crews lowered 22 life-sized cars into the ocean, several hundred feet off South Beach. The project was organized by a group that pioneers underwater sculpture parks as a way to create human-made coral reefs.<\/p>\n

\u201cConcrete Coral,\u201d commissioned by the nonprofit REEFLINE, will soon be seeded with 2,200 native corals<\/a> that have been grown in a nearby Miami lab. The project is partially funded by a $5 million bond from the city of Miami Beach. The group is also trying to raise $40 million to extend the potentially 11-phase project along an underwater corridor just off the city\u2019s 7-mile-long (11-kilometer) coastline.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we are making history here,\u201d Ximena Caminos, the group\u2019s founder, said. \u201cIt\u2019s one of a kind, it\u2019s a pioneering, underwater reef that\u2019s teaming up with science, teaming up with art.\u201d<\/p>\n

She conceived the overall plan with architect Shohei Shigematsu, and the artist Leandro Erlich designed the car sculptures for the first phase.<\/p>\n

Colin Foord, who runs REEFLINE\u2019s Miami coral lab, said they\u2019ll soon start the planting process and create a forest of soft corals over the car sculptures, which will serve as a habitat swarming with marine life.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI think it really lends to the depth of the artistic message itself of having a traffic jam of cars underwater,\u201d Foord said. \u201cSo nature\u2019s gonna take back over, and we\u2019re helping by growing the soft corals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Foord said he\u2019s confident the native gorgonian corals will thrive because they were grown from survivors of the 2023 bleaching event, where a marine heatwave killed massive amounts of Florida corals<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Plans for future deployments include Petroc Sesti\u2019s \u201cHeart of Okeanos,\u201d modeled after a giant blue whale heart, and Carlos Betancourt and Alberto Latorre\u2019s \u201cThe Miami Reef Star, a group of starfish shapes arranged in a larger star pattern.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat that\u2019s going to do is accelerate the formation of a coral reef ecosystem,\u201d Foord said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to attract a lot more life and add biodiversity and really kind of push the envelope of artificial reef-building here in Florida.\u201d<\/p>\n

Besides being a testing ground for new coral transplantation and hybrid reef design and development, Miami Beach Mayor Steven Meiner expects the project to generate local jobs with ecotourism experiences like snorkeling, diving, kayaking and paddleboard tours. <\/p>\n

The reefs will be located about 20 feet (6 meters) below the surface of the water and about 800 feet (240 meters) from the shore.<\/p>\n

\u201cMiami Beach is a global model for so many different issues, and now we\u2019re doing it for REEFLINE,\u201d Meiner said during a beachside ceremony last month. \u201cI\u2019m so proud to be working together with the private market to make sure that this continues right here in Miami Beach to be the blueprint for other cities to utilize.\u201d<\/p>\n

The nonprofit also offers community education programs, where volunteers can plant corals alongside scientists, and a floating marine learning center, where participants can gain firsthand experience in coral conservation every month.<\/p>\n

Caminos, the group\u2019s founder, acknowledges that the installation won\u2019t fix all of the problems \u2014 which are as big as climate change and sea level rise \u2014 but she said it can serve as a catalyst for dialogue about the value of coastal ecosystems.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can show how creatively, collaboratively and interdisciplinarily we can all tackle a man-made problem with man-made solutions,\u201d Caminos said.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Associated Press videojournalist Cody Jackson contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Follow David Fischer on the social platform Bluesky: \u202a@dwfischer.bsky.social\u202c<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI BEACH, Fla. (AP) \u2014 South Florida is seeing a wave of new cars, but they won\u2019t add…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32495,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[22918,22201,22795,12684,18237,22200,1882,28,477,22917,555,123,125,124,478,22202,22203,16445,1110,22796],"class_list":["post-32494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-alberto-latorre","tag-coastlines-and-beaches","tag-colin-foord","tag-coral-reefs","tag-corals","tag-earth-science","tag-fl-state-wire","tag-florida","tag-general-news","tag-leandro-erlich","tag-lifestyle","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news","tag-national","tag-national-parks","tag-oceans","tag-steven-meiner","tag-u-s-news","tag-ximena-caminos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32494","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=32494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32494\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}