Should the Herald Building be saved?

The building was designed for publishing a newspaper and to me, looks more like a warehouse.  I have toured the building several times over the last twenty years and I don't see too many redeeming features that need to be saved.  Something more architectually unique that has indoor parking to allow more trees and landscaped areas outside, would be much more attraactive.

Certainly there are redeeming architectural and historical elements that bring great value to the building and in telling the story of Miami’s history but, when one looks at the bigger picture and takes into consideration many of the aspects such as current functionality (a printing plant) and possible future uses, placement of the building and public access to the waterfront, the possibilities of what could be built moving forward, I personally think that these factors of the decision on whether or not to designate the building greatly outweigh the loss of the architectural and historical elements. Lets be sure to take lots of pictures and documentation and move on … As Downtown Miami continues to grow and mature, there needs to be strong consideration of overall context and cityscape, use and purpose of available space, traffic flow, and accessibility to our natural resources such as the waterfront. It would be a great setback for the city to have an old printing plant that sits unused because of functionality and the affordability for anyone to do anything with it. 

i enjoy the building but it is simply not signicant enough to pursue an individual historic designation. You have a motivated and high profile owner who just paid top dollar for it and they will strongly contest any designation-and undoubtedly win an the Commission level where it will be appealed. Modernism like this is an acquired taste and does not immediately resonate with the public. Way too risky to the whole concept of historic preservation in Miami.

Genting should pay homage to the history of the site with an exhbiit and photos related to the Herald building, the distinguished visitors who met with editors there,the thousands of people who worked there, and the many journalism prizes the Herald has won. A computer system that enables viewers to search the Herald archives would also be a great feature of such an exhibit.

I've always wondered how a city as beautifully situated on water has relatively few open waterfront spaces, such as the beautiful parks in Chicago and other waterfront cities.  It seems like developers of condos, hotels, and other buildings build right up to the water, blocking the water view from pedestrians and from the landscape.  When you walk near the Miami Herald building, you are hard pressed to notice that the beautiful Venetian causeway and Biscayne Bay are right there.  Historic Trinity Cathedral is swamped by the monolithic buildings that were built right up to the bayfront around it when they had to sell their waterfront space in a previous economic depression.  It would be great to see a renewal of waterfront spaces with the new museums going up on the bay, and an attractive waterfront space designation.  The casino is bad news...in my opinion. 

if persavationists push this one they will lose all cedibillity and may affect them later in more deserving cases. 

Using historic preservation as a way to try and derail other developments (in this case, the proposed casinos) is counterproductive and is a misuse of the legislation that allows us to save our unique heritage. Sure, the building has architectural merit, but I think the fight to preserve it should have happened immediately upon announcement that the Herald would be leaving, not after the current owners started talking about how to develop the property. Initiating the fight at this time has the potential to cause friction and frustration between our local historic preservation groups and our elected officials, and goodness knows our historic preservation groups need the support, both financially and politically, of our local governments.