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Like the diminutive but resourceful tricolored herons nesting on the water hazard islet of an overgrown, defunct golf course, you could say the homeowners of the Calusa community are a threatened species, too, trying to save their habitat from more suburban sprawl.

Against all odds — and in Miami-Dade County those odds include a major real estate developer, the Bacardi family and pro-growth politicians — score rounds 11 and 12 for the underdog in a years-long fight over the fate of prime Kendall land.

Tenacious residents who want to block or reduce the size of a proposed subdivision that threatens to clog their streets, crowd their schools, exacerbate flooding and destroy Mother Nature’s reclamation of the abandoned fairways won two victories this week. Their victories come one year after county commissioners approved a 550-home development on the old 168-acre Calusa Country Club property on Kendall Drive, and the same week commissioners agreed to move the Urban Development Boundary line closer to the Everglades to make room for a different project.

READ MORE: County commission overrides veto, clears project outside urban boundary near Biscayne Bay

“We are the little guys with limited resources, and we are gratified that our voices were heard, finally, when we stood up and said that the first priority in important zoning decisions should be the people who live there, not the billion-dollar developers,” said Amanda Prieto, leader of Save Calusa, a coalition of her neighbors. “Now, we get a second chance to make this project better.”

The county’s Department of Environmental Resources Management (DERM) confirmed that six tricolored herons — categorized as threatened or imperiled by the state of Florida — have made three nests at Calusa and ordered that the island they and hundreds of other birds use as a rookery must be preserved and buffered from new construction. Calusa, which has 2,074 homes, is located between Kendall Drive and Southwest 104th Street, from Southwest 127th to 137th avenues.

Developer GL Homes had originally planned to fill in the lake and build over the island and argued that most of the birds roosting there were common cattle egrets. Residents complained the developer did its environmental surveys outside of nesting season and also tried to drive away wildlife with aggressive mowing and trimming.

Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, who opposed the project and promised residents that DERM would conduct thorough field surveys, reiterated in a Nov. 7 memo that GL Homes must now submit a plan for DERM’s approval showing how it will ensure conservation of the species.

GL Homes Executive Vice President Dick Norwalk, who objected to residents’ characterizations of “routine maintenance activities as nefarious acts,” said his company has always been committed to protecting natural habitats and will honor its promise to preserve the rookery.

“We closely monitored the island, led the inspections and submitted reports in a collaborative effort with DERM,” he said. “It was not adversarial.”

GL Homes will revise its site plan, he said.

“We will now re-plan that section around the lake and rookery,” he said. “That may cost us a few homes.”

On another front, residents prevailed in a ruling by the 3rd District Court of Appeal ordering the county commission to throw out its 2021 reclassification of the golf course property from “parks and recreation” to “residential.” Commissioners voted 10-2 to rezone the property at the developer’s request, but the appeals court said the county failed to give proper public notice of the hearing, thus hindering public input, and must do it over.

READ MORE: ‘Can’t buy wildlife once it’s dead.’ County approves 550-home plan on former golf course

“We were right, they were wrong, and the court backed us up,” said Miami attorney David Winker, who is representing Save Calusa. “The developer and the county rushed the zoning hearing before the environmental studies were finished, made a decision based on incomplete information and the court called them for hiding the ball and not following the rules.

“The residents look forward to a fair chance to give their side and show why this project is a bad deal.”

Prieto, her neighbors and their supporters — including the Sierra Club, the Audubon Society and Zoo Miami spokesman Ron Magill, who stated, “You can buy consultants, but you can’t buy wildlife once it’s dead,” before he was cut off — were limited to one-minute entreaties to keep Calusa wild at the last zoning hearing, while GL Homes and its consultants got more presentation time.

READ MORE: The wild life and times of Ron Magill. How the face of Zoo Miami became an international star

Prieto is hoping for a different outcome — maybe even a miracle outcome — that would preserve Kendall’s oasis and open it to the public.

“We’ll have a new set of commissioners, the rezoning has been removed, the value of the land goes down. Would the county buy it and turn it into a park?” she said. “The developer’s argument that we need to infill Calusa and build more houses because we can’t move the Urban Development Boundary is no longer valid since commissioners voted to move the UDB. And this is not affordable housing anyway; it’s a luxury development.”

Save Calusa has suggested that Facundo Bacardi — the head of the rum empire who bought the golf course for $2.7 million in 2003 and has a stake in the development project with GL Homes — donate the land and turn it into the Bacardi Nature Preserve, “a beautiful legacy compared to bulldozing it to build yet another gated community,” Prieto said.

“At what point does this project no longer make sense?” Prieto said. “Clearly, the residents are not giving up.”

Norwalk said the county and GL Homes could decide to appeal the ruling or go back before the commission for a do-over of their rezoning application.

“Residents have a right to make challenges but this was unusual in that it was a procedural challenge, not a challenge of the substance of the plan, which the commission approved,” he said.

Norwalk has consistently argued that the land’s best use is residential given that county studies show the dwindling supply of building sites for new single-family homes will be exhausted by 2025. GL Homes cut the number of houses from 1,000 to 550, giving it the lowest density of any golf course redevelopment in the county.

He also says some residents’ concerns are exaggerated, stating they have “painted this fantasy of an environmental Xanadu when it’s actually a degraded former golf course.”

A bat survey requested by homeowners showed the endangered Florida bonneted bat foraging over the course, but Norwalk said his consultants found no evidence of the bat roosting at Calusa.

READ MORE: Can bats halt bulldozers at overgrown Kendall golf course? Some neighbors hope so

The fenced-off property is privately owned and was never publicly accessible, so GL Homes is not taking park space away from anybody, he says.

The history of the Calusa dispute dates back more than a decade. The original 1967 covenant required the property remain a golf course for 99 years until 2067 unless 75 percent of abutting or ring homeowners agreed to lift it.

Bacardi bought the golf club for the $2.7 million bargain price in 2003 — knowing it was restricted by the covenant and zoned as parks and recreation. Soon after, golfers began to notice its deterioration.

After hurricanes Katrina and Wilma hit in 2005, the damaged clubhouse wasn’t repaired and was replaced by a trailer and Porta-Potties. The course was closed in 2011.

Bacardi offered ring homeowners $50,000 each to waive the covenant. They didn’t, so Bacardi sued them. The covenant was upheld in a court ruling in 2016, but Bacardi said he’d continue the legal battle to invalidate it, then paid off weary ring homeowners with individual settlements of up to $300,000. Of 146 ring homeowners, 123 accepted payments and signed waivers, fracturing the community.

Commissioners released the covenant in October 2020, paving the way for new houses on the old course. GL Homes paid Bacardi $32 million for the property and he has a 35 percent stake in the development venture.

Prieto said Save Calusa wants to inspire other neighborhoods with its campaign against “oversaturated development.”

“People get frustrated and think they don’t have the power and money and influence to beat developers and their fleets of lawyers,” she said. “We’ve accomplished a lot on a shoestring of $100 donations, knocking on doors, getting to know our neighbors. Most of the Calusa homeowners who took the money have moved out. We stayed to save our community from unfair zoning and hopefully set an example for saving others.”

This story was originally published November 18, 2022, 5:00 AM.

A Kendall optometrist will pay a total of $7,882 as part of his discipline from the state Board of Optometry after a state complaint accused him of not providing proper care as a patient went blind.

READ MORE: A Kendall optometrist didn’t act as glaucoma developed in a now-blind patient, state says

According to the settlement agreement approved by the state Board of Optometry, Dr. Terry Friedman officially doesn’t admit or deny the narrative in the Florida Department of Health’s administrative complaint.

But he does pay a $4,000 fine; reimburse the Florida Department of Health $3,882 in administrative costs; has to complete three hours of continuing education in comprehensive eye exams and another three hours in record keeping; and gets a letter of concern against his license.

Miami-Dade court records say a medical malpractice suit against Friedman by the patient, who holds a doctor of education degree, was settled with each side paying his own attorney’s fees.

Glaucoma “is one of the leading causes of blindness for people over the age of 60,” according to the Mayo Clinic. “Many forms of glaucoma have no warning signs. The effect is so gradual that you may not notice a change in vision until the condition is in its later stages.

“It’s important to have regular eye exams that include measurements of your eye pressure,” the clinic says. “If glaucoma is recognized early, vision loss can be slowed or prevented. If you have glaucoma, you’ll need treatment or monitoring for the rest of your life.”

The complaint says Friedman failed at early detection despite seeing the patient since 2001. Even at that time, the complaint said, the patient was over 40, as well as being of African descent with a family history of glaucoma. Each of those characteristics alone would put the patient at a higher risk of glaucoma.

Friedman, the complaint says, “fell below the standard of care by failing to administer comprehensive eye examinations and/or threshold visual field testing when [Friedman] knew or should’ve known that Patient R.G. had risk factors for glaucoma.”

The complaint said Friedman didn’t do additional testing when R.G. complained of vision problems in January 2015, January 2016, February 2017 or December 2017. During the first 2017 visit, R.G. said that he had an inability to focus, which the complaint says is an early sign of glaucoma. R.G. spoke of a glare in his vision during the second visit.

Part of the problem, the complaint said, was Friedman’s records were “frequently illegible, thereby failing to adequately document examinations, treatments and prescriptions for R.G.”

R.G. made seven visits and several phone calls to Friedman from January 2015 through June 2018 complaining about vision problems. In June 2018, Friedman measured R.G.’s intraocular pressure as 11 in the right eye with 0.2 cupping and 10 in the left eye with 0.3 cupping.

“A healthy optic nerve with all of its nerve cells is more densely packed so has thicker edges and a smaller central cup,” the Brisbane Eye Clinic explains. “Glaucoma is caused by high pressure in the eye damaging the optic nerve, which results in loss of individual nerve cells. This causes a subsequent increase in the size of the cup, also called cupping.

“As a general rule, the cup should not make up more than three tenths or 30% of the total area of the optic nerve.”

When R.G. went to the Center for Excellence in Eye Care on Oct. 15, 2018, the complaint said, the pressure measured 35 with 0.95 cupping in each eye. The Center told R.G. he had glaucoma and should no longer drive.

A week later, the Center told R.G. he was legally blind.

Scouts of Tropical Florida have begun the 2023 Girl Scout Cookie season, which runs through Feb. 26, in Miami-Dade and Monroe counties.

It is the 88th Girl Scout Cookie sales season in the council’s now 100-year history. The Girl Scout Cookie Program is the largest girl-led entrepreneurial business in the world, with money from sales staying local supporting individual Girl Scouts to meet their goals.

All purchases of beloved Thin Mints, Samoas, Lemon-Ups, and other Girl Scout Cookie favorites are an investment in girl leadership in the community. With every sale, the Girl Scout Cookie Program teaches girls how to think like entrepreneurs as they run their own small businesses and learn skills like goal setting, money management, business ethics, people skills, and decision making — which are imperative for any leadership role.

Girls decide how to use their portion of the proceeds for unforgettable leadership experiences and community projects, while GSTF depends on the funds to deliver life-changing Girl Scout programming to 3,000 girls across every zip code in Miami-Dade and Monroe.

Here is how you can support the Girl Scout Cookie program in Miami and the Keys: • Girl Scouts of Tropical Florida Troops are hosting cookie booths at Publix, Milam’s Markets, other grocery stores and other locations now through Feb. 26, while supplies last. • Through the Digital Cookie online platform, girls can offer customers online orders. • For customers who want to support the sales but do not want the cookies, GSTF welcomes donations of cookies to our local Hometown Heroes. • Customers can also go to the Cookie Finder on the GSTF website at www.girlscoutsfl.org/cookies.

“Cookie sales fuel our Girls’ dreams and fine tune important business and communication skills,” said Chelsea Wilkerson, CEO of Girl Scouts of Tropical Florida.

“With the celebration of our council’s 100th year, we can’t think of a better time to support these future leaders and enjoy these delicious, iconic treats.”

The council’s first annual Girl Scout Cookie Sale was held in Miami in 1934 and raised more than $400 (around $8,500 today) funding summer camp scholarships to attend unique and immersive experiences. In 1945, cookie sales made possible the purchase of Camp Mahachee, GSTF’s 11-acre property in Coral Gables.

The 2022-23, Girl Scout year will mark Girl Scouts of Tropical Florida’s 100th anniversary, where GSTF will paint the town Girl Scout green, share stories of impact and successful alumni, and further investments to ensure the future of Girl Scouting in Miami and the Keys.

Girl Scouts is the preeminent leadership development organization for girls. Girl Scouts of Tropical Florida was founded in 1923 and currently serves nearly 3,000 girls in grades K-12 from every zip code across Miami-Dade and Monroe counties. To volunteer, reconnect, donate, or join, visit www.girlscoutsfl.org.

Miami Community Newspaper is an online newspaper that provides up-to-date local news and information about the Miami community. This daily newspaper provides local news coverage and keeps its readers up to date on the latest developments in the area. Their website also includes a Miami community podcast, where listeners can get the latest news and updates on the Miami community. Miami Community Newspapers is the perfect source for all your local Miami news needs, whether it is from their daily newspaper, podcasts, or other media sources.

As more businesses across America experiment with a four-day workweek, one Miami-area restaurant owner is taking the concept even further.

Justin Lindsey, who owns a Chick-fil-A restaurant in Kendall, Florida, is allowing employees to work the equivalent of a full 40-hour week in just three days, with four days off. He hit upon the idea of an ultra-condensed and unchanging schedule this winter, when the restaurant had been open for about half a year.

"They could plan their life around it — they could plan vacation, child care, school," said Lindsey, 42, of employees who opted for a three-day week. "I wanted them to be able to look out six months from now and know what days they were going to work."

It took several weeks to bring his staff around to the idea, said Lindsey. In particular, he said workers were incredulous that they wouldn't be "on call" on their days off and required to come in on short notice if the restaurant was shorthanded — a common practice at fast-food restaurants as well as among large retailers.

But months into the experiment, Lindsey said it's working better than he could have imagined.

"We have a manager who's from Scotland — he's taken two trips back to Scotland this year and he still has PTO available," he said, noting that another manager was able to graduate from the University of Central Florida thanks to her three-day schedule and intends to keep it while she pursues a master's degree.

To accommodate the shorter week, Lindsey created several "pods" of employees who would each work three extra-long shifts a week, rotating to spread out weekend shifts equally. So far, about a quarter of the restaurant's roughly 160 employees have shifted to the three-day schedule, according to Lindsey.

The three-day schedule is made easier because his restaurant, like all Chick-fil-As, is closed on Sundays. That means six work days can be evenly split among two working pods. One set of employees works Monday through Wednesday, while the other works Thursday through Saturday the groups switch periodically so the burden of working Saturdays, the busiest day, is spread evenly.

Longer days

The tradeoff of fewer shifts, of course, is longer hours. Each shift of a three-day schedule can be a potentially grueling 13 to 14 hours.

"It does take a little bit of an adjustment," Lindsey said, but added that most of the staffers working a three-day week were already working long days, so the additional stretch was manageable.

For his restaurant, the chief benefit is consistency, said Lindsey. Previously, there would be kinks in service because staff would be working different, overlapping shifts.

"For [workers] it's great because they know what the schedule is, and for us it's great because we can stretch the shift to cover all our peaks during the day," he said. "In the traditional schedule, managers would come and go throughout the day. Someone would come in to open and leave at 1 p.m., someone else would come in at noon and leave at 10."

A Chick-fil-A corporate spokesperson said no other restaurant in the franchise has tried to implement a three-day week. But Lindsey said many other Chick-fil-A owners have expressed interest and contacted him for help implementing the scheduling policy.

Lindsey's novel approach could also prove useful in attracting workers. He told CBS MoneyWatch that he's been flooded with applications since posting some open jobs. In one week, the restaurant got nearly 430 applications for the positions, which pay $15 to $17 an hour and include health benefits.

Restaurant trade publication QSR reported that Lindsey's location is on track to pull in $17 million in sales this year — more than double the $8 million a year average for a single location.

Lindsey has 12 years of restaurant experience, all of them with Chick-fil-A. (He owned a mall restaurant for 11 years before switching to the Kendall location in 2021.) His unusual schedule is in sharp contrast with the trend in the food service world toward just-in-time scheduling, in which staff work unpredictable and irregular schedules, supposedly as a way to better accommodate the ebb and flow of business.

"Your time doesn't belong to me because you work for me — it's your time," Lindsey said. "I"ve made that mistake before. I've sacrificed time with my family for the business. And that's time that is precious, that you can't get back."

A corporation that specializes in money transfers to Latin America and the Caribbean will be moving to larger offices within the Kendall area, an executive with investor relations said.

International Money Express, also known as Intermex (Nasdaq; IMXI), will move into 40,298 square feet of office at 9100 S. Dadeland Blvd. in the One Datran Center late this year or early next year, said Mike Gallentine, vice president of investor relations. It will be less than a half-mile away from Intermex's current corporate headquarters, a 32,216-square-foot office building at 9480 S. Dixie Highway.

"The reason for the relocation is because we are growing so much as a company every year and, as a result of that growth, we added employees and ran out of room here," Gallentine told the Business Journal.

When the move does happen, Intermex will relocate its C-suite executive staff as well as several hundred employees involved with sales, support, HR, finance and other tasks, he said.

Built in 1984 and renovated in 2003, One Datran Center is a 17-story, 256,369-square-foot office tower where asking rents range from $42 and $45.50 per square foot, according to LoopNet.com. That tower and the neighboring Two Datran Center (finished in 1987) are adjacent to Miami-Dade's Dadeland South Metrorail Station. Both office buildings were reportedly purchased for $150 million in the summer of 2016 by a venture led by ABS Partners Real Estate and Acre Valley Real Estate Capital.

The present Intermex Building is four-stories and was built in 1994. Miami HAR LLC, managed by George Dancea, paid $7.4 million for the building in May 2014.

New-to-market and local businesses have sought to upgrade their office space since the pandemic, brokers and developers have told the Business Journal. As a result, asking office rents have climbed, particularly in the downtown areas of Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and West Palm Beach. In the Brickell Financial District, asking rents average $79.70 a square foot, according to a recent report from JLL. In contrast, offices in the South Miami-Dade area average $37.60 a square foot.

After looking at other locations, Intermex opted to move into the Datran Center. "It's very close to public transportation, near where a lot of our employees live, and it made a lot of sense," Gallentine said. The building's facilities are also state-of-the-art, he added.

Founded in 1994 in the states of Washington and Oregon, Intermex relocated its headquarters to Miami-Dade in 1996. Through thousands of wire transfer locations and its mobile app, customers can send money from the U.S. and Canada to Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, Europe, and Asia. In its last quarterly financial report, Intermex reported earning $44.26 million in net revenue between January and September 2022, an increase of 31.3% year-over-year.

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