{"id":269524,"date":"2025-11-03T20:49:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T20:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/269524\/"},"modified":"2025-11-03T20:49:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T20:49:09","slug":"florida-underwater-sculpture-park-22-cars-plunged-into-the-ocean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/269524\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida underwater sculpture park: 22 cars plunged into the ocean"},"content":{"rendered":"

Your support helps us to tell the story<\/p>\n

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.<\/p>\n

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.<\/p>\n

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.<\/p>\n

Your support makes all the difference.Read more<\/p>\n

South Florida<\/a> has a new tourist attraction but you won\u2019t be able to spot it from land.<\/p>\n

Over several days late last month, crews lowered 22 life-sized cars<\/a> into the ocean<\/a>, several hundred feet off South Beach<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The project was organized by a group that pioneers underwater sculpture parks as a way to create human-made coral reefs.<\/p>\n

“Concrete<\/a> Coral,” commissioned by the nonprofit REEFLINE, will soon be seeded with 2,200 native corals that have been grown in a nearby Miami<\/a> lab. The project is partially funded by a $5 million bond from the city of Miami Beach<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The group is also trying to raise $40 million to extend the potentially 11-phase project along an underwater corridor just off the city’s 7-mile-long (11-kilometer) coastline.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we are making history<\/a> here,” Ximena Caminos, the group’s 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

\"Workers<\/p>\n

open image in gallery<\/p>\n

Workers prepare to submerge concrete cars that will be part of an underwater marine sculpture park off South Beach,Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025, in Miami Beach, Fla. Native corals grown in a lab will be attached to the cars to create a reef (AP Photo\/Marta Lavandier)<\/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’s Miami<\/a> coral lab, said they’ll 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

\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’s 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. <\/p>\n

Plans for future deployments include Petroc Sesti’s \u201cHeart of Okeanos,\u201d modeled after a giant blue whale heart, and Carlos Betancourt and Alberto Latorre’s \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. “It\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<\/a> Mayor Steven Meiner expects the project to generate local jobs with ecotourism experiences like snorkeling, diving, kayaking and paddleboard tours. <\/p>\n

The reefs, featuring marine-grade concrete, 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’m 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.”<\/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’s founder, acknowledges that the installation won’t 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","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":269525,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[228,226,227,229,88],"class_list":{"0":"post-269524","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-design","12":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269524\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}