FIU president Mark Rosenberg will speak to a group of builders and developers at the Latin Builders Association’s monthly luncheon today, at which 
the LBA will give the school’s expansion project and the referendum before voters that would be needed to allow them to use the space currently used by the Dade County Youth Fair — whenever and if they ever move.
Well, can anyone say “Duh”?
I mean, FIU wants the land so it can build housing and classroom and office space and parking structures. To the tune of $900 million. That is close to $1 billion in new business. And something (read: dollars) that members of the LBA — and particularly the event’s politically-connected sponsor, Munilla Construction — could stand to benefit from.
The school has been talking to the Youth Fair organizers for years, working with the county to find them a new home so that the FIU main Tamiami campus can grow to the south and west. But the fair people, who have a grip on a hard 43-year lease, aren’t budging. The measure on the Nov. 4 ballot isn’t really about moving forward. It simply gives the school the public’s okay — same as the fair got — to use that public space land for something other than a park. But it is designed to pressure the fair people into figuring something out.
Rosenberg will “discuss the current state of FIU, the FIU expansion projet and the future of higher education in Miami-Dade County.” Well, ain’t that a little like preaching to the choir? Ladra can just imagine all the construction business interests in the room, salivating.
Wanna watch the LBA officers — President Guillermo Fernandez, President Elect Alex Lastra and former President Bernie Navarro — trip all over themselves to say what a good thing this is? Not for them, but for our community? The luncheon begins at 1 p.m. at the FIU Graham Center ballroom.
From the ‘Duh’ department: LBA backs FIU expansion plan added by Ladra on
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