Adrienne Arscht Center for the Performing Arts is reshaping downtown Miami.

Exciting things are happening in Miami. International real estate developers are setting their sights on the city as a destination for billions of dollars in new inbound investment. The public and private sectors are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into state-of-the-art cultural venues by world-class architects. And the city’s downtown – long overlooked as a nine-to-five district – is coming alive as a 24/7 residential community populated by young professionals and families.

The Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County is at the heart of this activity. Now, with the support of ArtPlace, the Center will begin expanding its role as an area catalyst through a master planning project that aims to further energize the institution’s neighborhood and solidify downtown Miami as an arts and culture destination for the Americas.

As recently as 10 years ago, the area around the Arsht Center was blighted and vacant. Miami-Dade County set out to build a performing arts institution that would serve as a venue for the world’s best artists, a source of education for children and adults, an economic engine, and a uniting force in one of America’s most diverse cities.

Today, the Center’s Cesar Pelli-designed campus is the center of Miami’s new-look urban core. Sustainable infill development is taking place in every direction and the community has come to view the Center’s neighborhood as Miami-Dade’s New Town Square.

To the north and east, multinational real estate firms are hatching plans for master-planned, mixed-use development and crediting the Center’s campus as a driver for their investments. Directly to the south, cutting-edge buildings for Miami Art Museum and Miami Science Museum will anchor Miami’s new Museum Park complex.

At the center of it all, 500,000 patrons will attend 500 Arsht Center performances and events next year, numbers projected to grow as the city strengthens its standing as a global tourism and business hub.

Miami’s largest ever public-private partnership is paying dividends well beyond anyone’s imagination. The Arsht Center has helped drive more than $1 billion in new investment since construction of its campus began, and that sum is rising as credible developers from as far away as Spain and Malaysia seize opportunities to count the Center among their U.S. neighbors.

So where does that leave the Arsht Center? Beginning with a master planning initiative, the institution will be aggressive in ensuring its neighborhood develops the way other leading arts districts of the world have come to life, taking notes from downtown Los Angeles, New York’s Upper West Side, and Sydney Harbor.

By partnering with area stakeholders, developers, planners and architects, the Center will undertake an active role in determining what happens between and around downtown Miami’s assets – in the process advancing the institution’s mission and shaping the city’s cultural landscape for generations.