Coconut Grove Convention Center

The Coconut Grove Convention Center (formerly the Dinner Key Auditorium, also known as the Coconut Grove Expo Center), was an indoor arena and exhibition hall in Miami, Florida. It originally had been built as a hangar at International Pan American Airport in Dinner Key. The venue closed in 2005 and was used as a production studio for six years. The building was demolished in 2013 and the site is now home to Regatta Park.^[2]

Coconut Grove Convention Center

Former names	Dinner Key Auditorium (1951-80s)
Address	2700 S Bayshore Dr Miami, FL 33133
Location	Coconut Grove
Owner	City of Miami
Capacity	6,900
Construction
Opened	January 24, 1951 (1951-01-24)
Renovated	1978[1]
Closed	March 2004 (2004-03)
Demolished	November 5, 2013 (2013-11-05)
Tenants
Miami Floridians (ABA) (1969-70) Florida Jets (NRD) (1970)

History

The building opened in 1917 as a hangar of the Dinner Key Naval Air Facility. The base was decommissioned in 1945 and sold to the city a year later. The main hangar was converted in 1950 into a non-air conditioned exhibition hall that doubled as an arena.

This was the site of the March 1, 1969 incident in which Jim Morrison of The Doors was arrested for allegedly exposing himself to the audience.^{[3][4][permanent dead link‍]}

The Miami Floridians of the American Basketball Association played some of their home games at the auditorium in the 1969–70 season.^[5] Because the building was not air-conditioned, management would throw open the doors, forcing players to adjust their shots by the ocean breezes that whistled onto the court. The team finished with a 23–61 record later rebranding themselves to just The Floridians for their final two seasons of existence.^{[6][permanent dead link‍][7][self-published source]}

More recently, Burn Notice, a USA Network drama series, used the Convention Center for production of the show. In 2012, however, Miami City Commissioner Marc Sarnoff expressed a desire to raze the Center and build a bay-front park, noting a $1.8 million city cache in grant dollars for the project.^[8]

For the seventh and final season in 2013, USA Network agreed to use the Center with an increase of its rent from $240,000 to $450,000 a year -- just enough to cover the city's demolition costs, plus taxes, a studio spokeswoman confirmed. The Coconut Grove Convention Center was torn down in November 2013.^[9]

References

1. "Fall Shows". Boating. New York City, New York: Ziff-Davis Publishing Company. July 1978. p. 105. Retrieved December 31, 2019.
2. Viglucci, Andres (September 30, 2015). "Long-promised Regatta Park opens on Coconut Grove waterfront". Miami Herald. McClatchy Company. Archived from the original on January 1, 2020. Retrieved December 31, 2019.
3. Burks, John (December 10, 2010). "Jim Morrison's Indecency Arrest: Rolling Stone's Original Coverage" [April 5, 1969 Issue of Rolling Stone]. Rolling Stone. Penske Business Media.
4. Mary Werbelow, Jim Morrison and the Doors Archived 2012-10-25 at the Wayback Machine - URL retrieved June 18, 2006
5. Grasso, John (November 15, 2010). Historical Dictionary of Basketball. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. p. 233. ISBN 978-0810867635.
6. Tays, Alan (December 11, 2005). "For Today, ABA's Floridians More than a Memory". Palm Beach Post. Retrieved 18 April 2011.
7. "Remember the ABA: The Floridians".
8. McGrory, Kathleen (10 August 2012). "Burn Notice; We'll Write the Scripts, Thanks". The Miami Herald. Archived from the original on January 12, 2014.
9. "Did Jim Morrison unzip here? A look back at the wild days of the Dinner Key Auditorium". Miami Herald. McClatchy Company. October 29, 2019. Archived from the original on December 31, 2019. Retrieved December 31, 2019.

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