Sometime this summer, the construction of Miami's so-called Telecom Hotel will be finished.
The activation of the Network Access Point of the America's will be a significant moment because it will put Miami firmly on the map of hemispheric digital communications.
It is also significant because it is likely to accelerate the size and role of the information economy in Miami, next to its traditional sectors such as trade, tourism, and finance.
There is another likely consequence of the NAP of the Americas that has - as far as I can tell - not received any attention yet. It is the possibility of a historical transformation of the area north of downtown, around the building under construction by Terremark Worldwide, one block northeast of the Miami Arena.
Developments in recent years show that information-based corporate activity is highly sensitive to location and that such activities tend to cluster together in space.
The key issue is bandwidth, which translates into access to the main information highway.
Companies want to be as close as possible to the backbone of the fiber optic system because of their need for fast and secure mass information transmission. The cost of laying underground fiber optic cables in urban areas can run as high as $100,000 per mile, so access is a relatively scarce good.
Location matters, perhaps, more than ever.
Around the country, major telecom hubs such as New York, Chicago, Dallas, San Francisco, and Atlanta, are all based on recently built physical infrastructures of fiber-optic cable connections and exchange facilities.
In a number of cities, this evolving infrastructure has had significant consequences for urban redevelopment. The case of Atlanta is particularly instructive.
Atlanta currently ranks sixth in the United States in total number of backbone connections. Presently, the bulk of digital information coming to and leaving Miami passes through Atlanta.
In the course of the 1990s, Atlanta has witnessed the rapid installation of a fiber optic network with various loops and main access points. The creation of this infrastructure developed in a symbiotic relationship with the influx of high tech and information-based industries. In the process, some specific areas of Atlanta witnessed rapid redevelopment, including two old downtown neighborhoods that were previously stagnant, Five Points and West End.
After the inauguration of Miami's NAP, there is the prospect of fiber optic loops around downtown Miami and extensions to Coral Gables, Brickell and perhaps a few other areas. They will be accompanied by a growing number of POPs (point of presence: exchange sites, routers) and a corresponding geographic expansion of Miami's information economy in the area.
Such an expansion from downtown is most likely to go through the route of least resistance, available space, and lowest cost: north.
Downtown redevelopment issues in Miami have preoccupied politicians, civic leaders, and business people at least since the early 1950s. Lately, there has been much talk about a new baseball stadium, a new performing arts center, and the Miami River cleanup, among other things.
All of these are important. But such recreational facilities, by themselves, tend to have relatively marginal effects.
Speculation comes with the territory of urban planning. In this particular instance, we have to look a bit further into the future and take notice of recent developments in other cities.
If Miami's new role as a telecom hub is going to be successful, the Telecom Hotel and ensuing activities will do what the old Miami Arena failed to do: re-vitalize and transform the northern stretches of downtown and parts of Overtown.
It will not happen overnight, but it may well take shape within the next ten years or so. It will be a process with considerable economic and social consequences, and one that will demand close attention from local governments.
Jan Nijman is Professor of Geography and Regional Studies at the School of International Studies, University of Miami.