After years of neglect, the Little Haiti Cultural Complex is getting needed repairs
The Caribbean Marketplace, part of the Little Haiti Cultural Complex, came to life one weekend earlier this month with vendors, dance classes, kompa music and the tempting aroma of Haitian cuisine in the air.
It's been months since the marketplace had been this alive with bustling activity and a large crowd.
That's because the historical building had been closed since June due to roofing leaks and mold that has formed as a result of drainage issues. After the building got unsafe structures violations last year , it had taken the city of Miami more than a year to address the sorely needed repairs to what is considered a vital institution within the city's large Haitian-American community. The complex is owned and managed by the city's Parks and Recreation Department.
"Some of those problems have been kind of fixed, but these are temporary fixes," said Fritz Fenelon, who runs L'Heure Productions, a Little Haiti non-profit that hosts community programming. "A lot of the frustration comes from, we want permanent stuff."
The repairs Fenelon is referring to, which include sealing the roof to stop the leaks, didn't start until September — two months after the former director of the complex, Qunyatta Warren, resigned citing frustrations with lack of support from the city.
"At times it did feel like our voices were falling on deaf ears with the city," Fenelon told WLRN. "Since that time they did come address us. Now, we still have a long way to go, but I can say I've seen them make strides."
Fenelon describes one of the biggest problems with the city as being a lack of transparency with staff at the cultural complex, as well as the community.
Since Warren's resignation, said Fenelon, the city has been more diligent, with parks and recreation staff attending meetings to provide updates on the repairs and improvements.
During a Little Haiti Revitalization Trust meeting in July, Asael Marrero, the assistant city manager, said the city has capital projects valued at $5.3 million to renovate the cultural complex.
In an email sent to WLRN, the city outlined a timeline of ongoing and future improvements that the city's office of capital improvements and parks department are doing in both the Caribbean Marketplace and the adjacent cultural center.
City officials noted that a roof replacement in the marketplace is slated for completion by late 2025 or early 2026. The city also pledged to be done replacing the storm drainage system that is between the two buildings in the next 90 days after the project started with excavation in late September. Other repairs include improvements to the dance studio, which had previously been used as storage, A/C issues in certain spaces and restroom upgrades in the marketplace.
Sandy Dorsainvil, who managed the Little Haiti Cultural Complex on and off from 2013 to 2022, said she also experienced frustration with the city during her tenure as director. She told WLRN she believes Warren's departure had a lot to do with the changes the city started to make.
"Him leaving the way he did and putting his foot down about participation from administration really helped catapult some new energy into getting the place fixed," she said.
It wouldn't be the first time that pressure from leaders and members of the community resulted in keeping or improving the complex.
Designed by architect Charles Harrison Pawley, the marketplace building opened its doors in 1990 and it cost $1.2 million to build. The design of the building is based on Haiti's gingerbread-style houses and the "Iron Market" in the capital of Port-au-Prince, a bazaar built in the late 1800s.
The city of Miami took ownership of the building in 2005 with plans to demolish it to the ground. But protests and pressure from local groups saved the space. As envisioned by the late city commissioner Arthur E. Teele, the Little Haiti Cultural Center later opened adjacent to the marketplace.
Now that the space seems to be going in the right direction, Marie Vickles, a curator at the cultural center said she hopes the marketplace can come back to what it used to be not long ago.
"There was a pizza shop that was operating [in the marketplace] on the weekends, they had craft and farmer markets and artists. So, I hope all those things can come back," she said. "People love coming here and the Caribbean Marketplace has been a staple of Little Haiti...I think sustainability for the long term is the biggest challenge in all of this.
