In the 1980s, when Miami-based Burger King looked to build a modern corporate headquarters that reflected the Whopper empire’s global reach and success, it chose an out-of-the-way — and flood-prone — slice of land on Biscayne Bay off Old Cutler Road, deep in what was then known as South Dade.
On 80 acres, the company built a sprawling, multi-story campus of monumental entryways, soaring atria and expansive terraces overlooking an artificial lagoon and offering, far in the distance across an expanse of water, a view of the downtown Miami skyline. Sandwiched between wild mangroves and a dense forest on the watery edge of what was once the Everglades’ vast flood plain, the complex rose like a fast-food Oz from the remnants of the area’s degraded but still vitally important natural environment.
Whether audacious or foolhardy, it would soon prove a fateful decision — one that carries new and consequential repercussions today…