The Underline Is Almost Built. The Upkeep Bill Has Already Arrived.

On Saturday, Aug. 15, children climbed through the new Nikki Spoelstra Play Forest beside South Miami City Hall. A band played and vendors sold food while officials dedicated the newest 1.17-mile piece of The Underline. That segment runs from Dadeland to the edge of Coral Gables at Red Road. The play forest sits at 6130 Sunset Drive and was built around natural play features, musical chimes and a sensory trail. It has an outdoor reading room and covered seating for parents. Nikki Spoelstra donated $500,000 to sponsor it.

Keep that $500,000 figure in mind. Six weeks later, it is also the amount Coral Gables agreed to redirect from city projects to help run the whole trail for a year. The Underline's construction is expected to finish by December, years ahead of the original plan thanks to a large federal grant. Coral Gables Magazine puts the gain at almost a decade. Finishing early moved the cost of operating the park forward too. That cost now shapes what stays planted, staffed and programmed along US 1.

Seven Miles Open, With the Most Elaborate Stretch Still Fenced

The August opening brought the formally open total to seven of the planned 10 miles. Here is how the trail filled in. Local reports describe the boundaries of the southern pieces differently, so the segments below are listed by place, not added up into a mileage total.

The southern end has features the northern phases lack. Mariposa Gardens marks the north entry to the southernmost leg with butterfly plantings and a cluster of Underline-green birdhouses. There are also two micro-forests, one near the garden and one just past SW 70th Avenue. These are compact plantings of native trees and shrubs meant to grow quickly into dense green cover along a heavily traveled corridor. The South Miami work also replaced a canal bridge just north of SW 80th Street. That bridge dated to the corridor's years as Henry Flagler's rail line. The same work also opened a South Miami Hospital meditation garden that had been built years earlier but stayed locked until the trail beside it was finished.

Commissioner Raquel Regalado's district covers a long section of the trail, and she lives near it. She said before the August opening that many of her neighbors are talking about it and meeting to walk it.

What the University of Miami Stretch Will Add

The remaining gap is the middle section through Coral Gables along the University of Miami. The Herald says it will contain some of the trail's most elaborate features. The public land beside the Metrorail is widest in Coral Gables, so this stretch has room for full public spaces as well as the continuous path. In early September, Coral Gables Magazine reported that four of the six planned Gables spaces were complete and three were in use.

• The Underline Plaza, beside Douglas Road Station. It has an "urban beach" with real sand under large shade umbrellas, and murals by Bahamian artist April Bey on two Metrorail columns. Underline CMO Lisle Bowen describes it as the trail's midpoint, five miles from the Miami River and five from Dadeland. The goal is to program it with food trucks.
• The Wilds, on Ponce de Leon Boulevard near Orduna Drive. It is complete, with native Everglades wetland plants, stormwater bioswales, boardwalks and shaded rest areas.
• The Fitness Room, near Riviera Drive. It is complete but not yet in use. It has body-weight equipment, a stretch area, a half basketball court and a mini-pitch soccer field.
• Chewy Bark Park, at 4500 Ponce de Leon Boulevard. It has separate areas for small and large dogs, cooling turf, agility tunnels and hydration stations.
• Rock Ridge Plaza, at Ponce de Leon and Stanford Drive, under construction. It will run a full block, with an outdoor amphitheater and classroom on boulder seating, a shaded gathering space and a Flex Plaza for performances.
• PineLand Courts, near Carrillo Street, under construction. It is sponsored by Baptist Health and will have four public pickleball courts, a regulation basketball court, drinking fountains and bike parking.

The finish is moving, but slowly. In July, county commissioners approved a $2.25 million increase and a 270-day extension to the construction, inspection and engineering contract with Calvin, Giordano & Associates for the final stretch. Once the gap closes, founder Meg Daly has promised "a 10-mile-long party."

The Station Gaps Still on the Route

A continuous trail on paper still has gaps on the ground. When the Herald walked the southern end in July, both Dadeland stations and Douglas Road Station were under renovation, expansion or redevelopment. Trail connections through them were "sketchy or missing altogether." At Dadeland North, the old M-Path connection behind the garage was blocked. Signs inside the station told cyclists to dismount for about a tenth of a mile, which is a real problem for anyone in cleated bike shoes. The final approach to Dadeland South meant a narrow alley between fences and a maze of cones. The Herald also flagged the crossings at Kendall Drive and the State Road 878 exit ramp. Those intersections now have bright-green crosswalks and, in places, no-right-on-red signs. That is the most recent firsthand account of the stations. Anyone riding through Douglas Road or Dadeland this fall should expect conditions to have changed since July, for better or worse.

A Running Bill Close to $9.5 Million a Year

Design and construction cost around $140 million, overseen by the county's transit agency. Once the full trail is open, operating it is expected to cost about $9.5 million a year. That is roughly a fifteenth of the construction cost, owed every year. The Underline Conservancy runs operations and maintenance under an agreement with Miami-Dade. The county has earmarked $6 million in total operating support, but most of it ends in two years and decreases each year until then.

The plan for the rest has two parts. Friends of The Underline aims to cover 60% of next year's operating costs through private donors and sponsorships. The Conservancy asked the three cities along the route for about 30% of the cost of operating, programming and maintaining the park. South Miami and the City of Miami agreed last year to multi-year funding. Coral Gables received a request for $4.49 million over five years and pushed back. Mayor Vince Lago had arranged $7 million in Gables money to help build the trail, and the city added $379,000 for the dog park.

"I would have never moved forward if it would have been a financial commitment to do the construction and also to maintain the facility." Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago, to the Miami Herald

The county's transit and public works department says it has no record of any commitment exempting a city from contributing. Eulois Cleckley, CEO of Friends of The Underline, says he could not confirm the mayor's account. Both sides left that disagreement unresolved and reached a deal this week. At its budget hearing, the Gables commission voted unanimously to give $500,000 for fiscal year 2027, half of the $1 million requested, plus the full $180,000 requested for fiscal year 2026. In return, the city got audited financials, an annual meeting to renegotiate, and a seat on the Conservancy board with an appointee the commission chooses. City Manager Peter Iglesias now has to decide which Gables projects to cut or delay to cover it. Daly has said she hopes the three cities will need to contribute this much only temporarily.

Sponsor Names on This Week's Calendar

The 60% private target already shows up on the trail. Baptist Health sponsors PineLand Courts. It also sponsors the free UYoga classes held every Thursday from 7 to 8 p.m. at Vizcaya Station Plaza and the free Roll Skate Club, which is listed for Oct. 6. Nikki Spoelstra's gift paid for the play forest. Other upcoming listings include:

1. The Underline Market, Saturdays at the Inter Stage, 805 SW 1st Avenue, run with East Coast Markets. Expect local farmers, makers, produce, food and music.
2. HIIT & Run, a free 60-minute session on Oct. 4. Instructor Decue leads 30 minutes of HIIT, then Instructor Mo leads a 30-minute group run.
3. Pride Run, on Oct. 7 at the River Room, with The Out Collective.
4. The Levitt Foundation Music Series, free outdoor concerts featuring local performers.

The plan for covering most of the trail's running costs depends on sponsorships like these continuing, along with the money Miami, South Miami and Coral Gables have agreed to. The Gables funding will require Underline supporters to go back to the commission for future years, so that funding will be decided again after Rock Ridge Plaza and PineLand Courts open.

We follow how Miami's public spaces are paid for as closely as how its towers are financed, since both affect the blocks around them. If you would like to talk through the US 1 corridor from Brickell to Dadeland, Privé Advisory Group is glad to help. Request a Private Call.