King’s son brings message to South Florida

The past few days have kept the eldest son of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. busy. He’s been to at least three states to carry on his father’s message: ending violence and learning from historical wrongs.

In a Fort Lauderdale Baptist church early Friday, he delivered another directive:

“A nation is judged on how we treat our most prized possession,” Martin Luther King III said. “And our most precious resource, I think, is our children.”

King served as the keynote speaker at the ninth annual Martin Luther King Jr. inspirational breakfast hosted by the YMCA of Broward County.

More than 500 gathered inside the First Baptist Church on Broward Boulevard, selling out the $2,500 per table event, to honor King’s legacy.

“My concern was that it would not be reduced to a day of relaxation,” said King III. “We have to look at this as a day on — not a day off.”

The Rev. King, a prominent civil rights leader, was born this week 84 years ago. He lead peaceful protests and bus strikes working for racial equality until his 1968 assassination.

The younger King told the South Florida audience about spending his youth at the local YMCA in Birmingham, learning to swim and working out with his dad.

“Those were wonderful experiences, experiences that I will never forget,” he said.

Like his father, King III has been a fighter for human rights, justice and non-violence in the United States and abroad. He also served as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s president, a position his father once held.

During his 2009 inauguration, President Barack Obama declared the holiday honoring King should be spent as a national day of service.

At Friday’s event, 15 youngsters from the Lauderhill YMCA were honored for their service to the community. The young friends managed to clean up a popular overpass and get rid of gangs who were harassing children.

They called their project “Own the Overpath.” The idea started when 14-year-old Kervens Jean-Louis was attacked by a gang on a fenced in walkway that spans the Florida Turnpike while coming from the YMCA, based at Boyd Anderson High School. But Jean-Louis didn’t back down.

He and other students mobilized and launched a campaign to clean-up the area surrounding the “overpath.” The youngsters made a formal presentation to the Lauderhill City Commission and Florida Department of Transportation officials.

Now, there is a $400,000 project in the works to install more lights on the bridge to increase visibility. The city broke ground in November.

“I learned that when you speak out loud it makes a difference,” said Jean-Louis.

For Jean-Louis, speaking loud meant going back to the bridge to warn others of the dangers of traveling across it at night.

He will spend this upcoming Saturday as a volunteer, painting and cleaning up a garden.

“Now I tell others what’s going on and how they can help out,” he said, much like the man they had all come to honor.

After the youngsters were honored, King III left the crowd to ponder a final thought: “We can either be a thermometer or a thermostat.”

A thermometer, he explained, takes the temperature while a thermostat regulates the temperature.

Despite the progress his father saw in his lifetime, and the decades since his death, there is still much work to be done, King III said.

“I always come with a heavy heart in January,” he said. “Because we have not fully realized the dream.”

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How Your Great-Grandmother’s Hobby Is Transforming One Alabama Town

Natalie Chanin’s life-changing epiphany struck while standing on a New York City street corner.

For days, she had traversed throughout the city with a trash bag of her deconstructed T-shirts, seeking a manufacturer to help her make them. None of them, however, understood what kind of stitching she wanted on her creations, which had become popular in New York fashion circles after she made one on a whim and wore it to a party. Chanin was frustrated.

But then, she remembered a group of women who constructed hand-made quilts with bold stitching passed down through the generations. Chanin envisioned those stitches on her deconstructed T-shirts, She believed that those women could help her fuse the past with the present.

So, like a modern-day Scarlett O’Hara, Chanin knew where her immediate future lay, and it was back home in Florence, Ala. When Chanin returned to Florence in 2000, it was a much different place than when she left it in the 1980s. Then, the historic quaint town was the T-shirt capitol of the world, thanks to a thriving textile industry that employed thousands.

But a decade later, that industry had nearly vanished. People were unemployed in the town of 40,000 and warehouses were closed. The cotton once used for T-shirts was now shipped aboard. Chanin squarely blames NAFTA for these changes.

Public Citizen, a non-profit grassroots organization, cites that Alabama lost 118,125 manufacturing jobs from 1994 to 2012. The Bureau of Labor Statistics stated in a 1995 report that while the textile industry was seeing employment decline in the 1980s because of technology and overseas jobs, but it noted, “Future employment levels will be affected by the North America Free Trade Agreement” and that job loss would be “incremental” over the years.

NAFTA was touted as a good thing by many people because it would ease trade regulations and increased investment between the United States, Canada and Mexico. In 1993, President Bill Clinton signed the legislation, saying at the time: “NAFTA means jobs, American jobs, and good-paying American jobs. If I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t support this agreement.”

Chanin doesn’t proclaim to be an expert on NAFTA, but the trade agreement angers her, and she blames Clinton for it.

“I often wonder if he regrets NAFTA,” Chanin says. “NAFTA helped to put a nail in the coffin of manufacturers in America. It created fear and anger, and we didn’t get the open commerce we wanted.”

The unemployment and the textile industry’s death in Florence haunted Chanin. She says she did what she knew how to do – sew – and never had a plan to become an eco-friendly fashion leader, a cheerleader for artisan seamstresses or a poster girl for Made in the USA. But that’s exactly what happened.

Chanin’s handcrafted, organic couture line – Alabama Chanin – has become emblematic of what’s possible when someone focuses on community commitment, sustainability and local traditions.

“I believe in ‘Made in America’ where at all possible,” Chanin says. “I see it almost as a matter of national security. It’s disturbing when you see that there are no steel mills in the South anymore. Food, clothing, shelter, right? Those are essential to sustaining life. Sewing was once a vital necessity for men and women.”

 Photo: Alabama Chanin

Chanin, 50, has certainly stitched her own path with a needle and thread.

On this January day, Chanin wears a black skirt, white boots and a white long-sleeve shirt with a black overlay T-shirt. Her trademark white hair frames her ageless face. Sitting at a long white table, she weaves her story like any good Southern storyteller. To fully grasp Chanin’s role in the Slow Fashion movement that promotes quality over quantity, you have to absorb Florence’s history and Chanin’s connection to it.

In the 1800s, Florence, a river town, had an abundance of water and streams that made it geographically suited as a cotton mill town. Villages soon cropped up where men, women and even children made underwear, union suits and undershirts for paltry wages. It was a rough life, dependent on soil, water and the seasons. Cotton was king, and it supported generations through the Civil War, the Great Depression and World War II.

Chanin’s Alabama roots cross many decades, and her family tree goes back seven generations in the area. Her great-grandmother knitted socks in east Florence’s Sweetwater Mill. Both of her grandmothers were avid quilters. Her parents still live around Florence and her 30-year-old son, Zachariah, moved to the town five years ago. Six years ago, Chanin’s daughter, Maggie, was born, and five months ago, her son became a father to Chanin’s first grandchild, Stella Ruth.

“There are five generations of my family alive and living here now,” she says. “It’s home, and that’s why I came back. It’s home.”

Sweet Home Alabama

When Chanin returned to Alabama, she set up shop in a three-bedroom brick house “10 miles as the crow flies” from Florence in a community known as Lovelace Crossing. “We say it like ‘loveless’,” Chanin says.

There, she began what she considered “just an art project” with the recycled, reworked T-shirts. She visited the quilting circle, and the women still met weekly, sold their completed quilts and reinvested the money into the community center – just as Chanin remembered. She told the women that she wanted to hire them for her project. But she hit a deadend.

“They said, ‘This is something we do for the community, we don’t want a job,” Chanin recalls. “They had gardens, grandchildren and they didn’t want the responsibility.”

Chanin persevered.

She placed an ad in the local newspaper seeking part-time seamstresses. Sixty people responded; she locked in 20 of them as independent contractors, creating a cottage industry that allowed women to work on their own terms and time. Many of these women lived in rural areas, had limited, if no, transportation and children to care for during the day.

The idea worked and evolved into the company Project Alabama. Eventually a few hundred stitchers sewed for her Project Alabama line. But, then the U.S. Department of Labor entered the picture in 2003 and investigated the independent contractor methods.

“We lost 90 percent of our workforce from one day to the next,” she says. “We refined the system because the Department of Labor was instrumental in showing us how the independent contractor system could work.”

The Birth of Alabama Chanin

“There are no rules; that is how art is born.” That’s the greeting on a lighted sign inside the front door of the Alabama Chanin spacious office and work space. Another handmade fabric sign states, “Waste Not Want Not.” On the back of two chairs, the words “Simplify, Simplify, Simplify” are carved into the natural wood. All of these sum up Chanin’s ethos.

Chanin left Project Alabama in 2006 amid differences about the company’s future regarding retaining jobs in her home town.

She soon started Alabama Chanin, leaving the house in Loveless and renting a 5,000-square-foot warehouse in Florence with a long history in the textile industry. The space was once part of a larger 100,000-square-feet complex that housed wall-to-wall sewing machines and workers who dyed fabric and made T-shirts.

Now a rack of Chanin’s designs – beautiful white coats with red stitching, appliqué skirts, stenciled T-shirts – has replaced the machines. Wire shelves hold Chanin’s white swatch books with hundreds of appliqué designs. Southern books, including the three she wrote, are displayed along with her examples of her jewelry and ceramic lines. Vintage Alabama quilts, which Chanin has “stabilized” with remnant fabrics and embroidery that tells stories, hang on one wall.

 Photo: Rinne Allen/Alabama Chanin

Unlike most clothing companies, Alabama Chanin doesn’t mass produce hundreds of items for retail, in an effort to maintain a policy of zero waste. Instead, each piece is a work-of-art, an item to be treasured, and like art, an Alabama Chanin garment is expensive – some range upwards of $ 5,000 and beyond. Fans often save for two or three years to own one.

Chanin uses only 100 percent organic cotton grown in Texas. It is spun into yarn in North Carolina, knitted into fabric in South Carolina and dyed in Tennessee and North Carolina. In the best case scenario, Chanin says, she attempts to use 100 percent American products, but occasionally organic domestic cotton is not available.

She no longer shows her designs at New York City Fashion Week, instead developing her brand through trunk shows, word-of-mouth and the Internet. While many designers keep their designs secret, Chanin does not. She is a zealous believer in the DIY and open-source movement. A significant part of her business is now centered on teaching workshops, writing books and her blog and selling custom sewing kits that allow others to create their own clothing and accessories.

It’s the operation of her business, however, that is most innovative.

Chanin employs only eleven people at the warehouse, but 30 seamstresses work as independent contractors. Over the years, Chanin estimates that more than 500 seamstresses in the Florence area have contributed to her design business. Her system is now similar to a cottage industry.

The concept hearkens to the Industrial Revolution when workers couldn’t travel from rural areas to urban ones. It allowed workers to have employment and also flexibility, something that is still needed in the 21st century.

“I’m just as proud of the system [we’ve developed] as for the designs that have been in Vogue,” she says. “Women are the primary caregivers whether it is a sick child or a caregiver for an elderly parent. They can work when they want, where they want and it empowers them to set their own schedule.”

A product isn’t made until a customer places an order. A bidding sheet for projects is sent to the 30 seamstresses via email and is also available at the warehouse. Seamstresses bid on projects, quoting Chanin a price that they think is fair depending on the project’s complexity with design, beading and appliqué. The bid may be in the thousands of dollars and take several months to complete as every piece is hand-sewn with not one stitch made on a machine.

 Photo: Rinne Allen/Alabama Chanin

The seamstress then invests her money into the project by purchasing the unassembled raw materials (fabric panels, thread, an Alabama Chanin label and other supplies) in person at the warehouse.

“When everyone is invested, you have a better ratio for success,” Chanin says. “They work by the project not by the time,” she explains. “We don’t ask. That’s their business. It’s totally up to them how they want to do it.”

When the project is finished, the seamstress initials the label and sells the creation back for the value she thinks it is worth. Rarely does an item fail to meet standards or a deadline. Ever conscious, Chanin tries to ensure everyone has a project during slow periods.

“We are always looking for ways to keep our artisans busy, and if we don’t, they will try to find other jobs because they have to feed their families,” she says. “These people are like our families. We care about them. We know their kids. We know who they are. We have become grandmothers together. We have broken bread together. We have prayed together. Keeping them in work is one of the responsibilities I have as a business owner.”

The Future Is Bright

Along back roads of the South, cotton fields extend for miles. The fluffy white bolls remain an integral part of the Southern economy and culture. No one knows this better than Southerners like Chanin and Florence fashion designer, Billy Reid, and his staff.

“This whole conversation sprang up about two years ago because there is an organization interested in bringing manufacturing back to the South,” Chanin says. “We were saying that it would be amazing if we could have vertical manufacturing here from growing the cotton to cutting and sewing it.”

Chanin gives credit to K.P. McNeill, who works for Billy Reid, for finding the six-acre untouched and unfarmed spot for the organic cotton experiment. From there, Chanin calls the farming adventure “a miraculous journey.”

“We found two sacks of seeds after we couldn’t find any,” she says. “We didn’t have a tractor and suddenly we had a tractor. We didn’t have a planter and then we had a planter.”

A severe drought threatened to kill the cotton crop, but amazingly, the cotton grew. Last October, Chanin closed her warehouse for the day and headed to the cotton patch to attend Alabama Chanin and Billy Reid Cotton Picking Party and Field Day. Family, friends and the community were invited to join Chanin. She hoped that people would learn about organic farming and the future possibilities that exist for Florence textile industry. While the acreage only produced a bale and half of cotton, it offered hope for the next season.

For Chanin, growing jobs was once her primary concern, but she has expanded her mission to include cultivating DIY ingenuity and, now, tackling the land. Her latest farming project should not surprise those who know and admire Chanin. After all, she believes that other businesses and designers should simply follow their heart.

“It’s about making the right decisions which aren’t always the easiest decisions,” Chanin says. “But every time I’ve made the right decision, I’ve been rewarded.”

---

Suzi Parker is an Arkansas-based political and cultural journalist whose work frequently appears in The Washington Post and The Christian Science Monitor. She is the author of two books. @SuziParker | TakePart.com 

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Drew Barrymore on Oprah's Next Chapter

Drew Barrymore opens up about her complicated childhood and the lessons she's learned when it comes to being a new mother on Oprah's Next Chapter, and we have a sneak peek!

Pics: Celebs and Their Cute Kids

Marking the first time cameras have ever been allowed inside her home, Drew also talks to Oprah about her new marriage to Will Kopelman, shares details about their newborn baby Olive, and reveals the story behind why her mother did not attend her wedding.

Related: Drew Barrymore's Daughter Olive Lands First Cover

Oprah's Next Chapter with Drew Barrymore airs Sunday at 9 pm ET/PT on OWN.

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Lance’s crying shame

A teary-eyed Lance Armstrong finally showed some emotion last night while confessing to Oprah Winfrey that he was guilted into telling his children he was pro cycling’s biggest cheater.

Armstong said he had little choice but to ’fess up over the holidays when he learned that his oldest son, Luke, 13, was regularly defending him in public.

“He never asked me; he never said, ‘Dad is this true?’ ” Armstrong said. “He trusted me.”

Regarding his talk with Luke and Lance’s two 11-year-old twin girls, Armstrong recounted saying, “Listen, there’s been a lot of questions about your dad. I said, ‘I want you to know it’s true.’

OWN

DADDY’S DISGRACE: Lance Armstrong lost his composure when he told Oprah Winfrey how he confessed his sordid lies to his children.

“I told them, ‘Don’t defend me anymore’ . . . They didn’t say much . . . They just accepted it,” added Armstrong, who also has two younger children.

During the second half of the long-awaited confession, he also admitted that his most “humbling” moment during his fall from grace was in November when he was pressured into cutting all ties with Livestrong, the cancer charity he helped found.

“The foundation was like my sixth child,” he said, adding that that experience was even more humiliating than losing tens of millions of dollars in sponsorship deals from companies such as Nike.

He later said with a straight face that he believes he deserves to compete professionally again.

“I deserved to punished. I don’t deserve the death penalty,” he said, referring to his lifetime ban.

Armstrong’s remarks aired hours after some people he had burned on his way to the top said he fell flat during the first part of his on-air mea culpa with Winfrey, which aired Thursday.

The wife of a former teammate who long said that Armstrong was a doper ripped the admitted drug user after his limited confession.

Betsy Andreu testified in 2006 that she heard Armstrong admit to doping in an Indiana hospital 10 years prior. After years of denying her charges and attacking her, Armstrong refused to address those claims.

“I’m really disappointed,” Andreu told CNN. “You owed it to me, Lance, and you dropped the ball.”

Max Miley, 52, who rode with Armstrong as teenagers in Texas, told The Post he thought the fallen star was “evasive” at times.

“He’s been lying for 15 years and it’s hard to believe that [he’s] telling the truth now,” Miley said.

Miley, a cycling coach and founder of Max Fitness Inc., did not believe Armstrong was completely forthcoming.

“The fact that he said he took drugs every Tour de France [he won] . . . to hear it from his mouth is a big admission on his part.”

But Armstrong needs to unload everything, Miley said. “It can’t hurt to change things, but he cannot move forward unless he truly comes clean,” he said.

Sports officials agreed.

A day after stripping Armstrong of his bronze medal from the 2000 Sydney Olympics, the International Olympic Committee said Armstrong should give authorities details about his doping program to “bring an end to this dark episode.

“If he thinks this interview would help him get credibility back, I think this is too little, too late,” said IOC Vice President Thomas Bach, who heads the committee’s anti-doping investigations.

In Thursday’s installment on Oprah’s network, Armstrong said he didn’t feel he was cheating while using steroids to win seven consecutive Tour de France races, and didn’t supply any names of those who helped him.

Armstrong’s rep did not respond to a request for comment.

dmacleod@nypost.com

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Norwegian Cruise Line launches strong IPO

Miami-based Norwegian Cruise Line joined its larger local competitors on Wall Street Friday in a strong debut.

Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd. raised nearly $447 million in an initial public offering of about 23.5 million shares and saw stocks sail 30 percent in trading.

Shares closed Friday afternoon at $24.79, up $5.79 from the $19 offering price set late Thursday night. That was above the range of $16-$18 that the company had expected.

“I think this was a classically beautiful IPO, albeit relatively small in terms of total dollars,” said Roderick McLeod, partner in the management consulting practice McLeod.Applebaum & Partners and a former cruise executive.

In regulatory filings, the company has said it plans to use proceeds from the IPO to reduce debt and pay expenses related to the offering. Norwegian is giving the underwriters a 30-day option to buy up to an additional 3.5 million shares.

Previously, the company was privately held in a partnership of Genting Hong Kong, with 50 percent of the cruise line, and private equity firms Apollo Management and TPG. Genting Hong Kong is a subsidiary of gambling and resort conglomerate Genting Group, which purchased the land currently occupied by The Miami Herald in 2011 for $236 million.

After the IPO, the three groups own a total of about 88 percent of the company’s ordinary shares.

Norwegian, with a fleet of 11 ships and three more on the way by the fall of 2015, has made its name by emphasizing a “freestyle” type of cruising that allows guests to choose from a variety of dining, entertainment and rooming options.

In an interview Friday morning, Norwegian Cruise Line President and CEO Kevin Sheehan said that the timing was right for the offering.

“It just seemed like a very logical time: We’re into 2013, we’ve got these beautiful new ships coming out soon and the marketplace is very excited about them,” he said. “The locomotive is moving and we’re at the tipping point with the brand.”

As the industry grows by just about 2.5 percent over the next five years, Sheehan said, Norwegian will grow capacity by more than 10 percent.

“It’s the double whammy,” he said. “Lower growth in the future with a phenomenal set of assets.”

He said the benefits of going public include raising capital, allowing the company to strengthen its balance sheet and putting it in the same playing field as its competitors. Carnival Corp., the world’s largest cruise ship company, and rival Royal Caribbean Cruises are both publicly traded. Carnival closed up about a percent at $38.58 Friday, while Royal Caribbean dropped just over a percent to $36.90.

“Now we’re out there and people can look at our results and the analysts can talk about us freely,” he said.

The launch capped years of attempts by Norwegian to go public, all abandoned for economic reasons.

Miami cruise expert Stewart Chiron, CEO of CruiseGuy.com, said the timing was good, with an industry performing well and a vastly improved company.

“I’m glad they finally got it done,” he said. “This was by far one of the important milestones that they wanted to cross.”

McLeod remembers an effort when he was president and chief operating officer at Norwegian that coincided with the stock market crash in October of 1987. He has also worked in senior positions at Royal Caribbean Cruises and Carnival Corp.

“I think we’ve all kind of known this was coming eventually and some of us have known it’s coming for 25 years,” McLeod said. “It’s never too late to do the right thing; this is the right thing for them to do.”

The move is smart, McLeod said, for several reasons.

“In addition to improving their leverage, reducing their debt, this expands their strategic options,” he said. “This is a currency, and that can work for them in lots of different ways.”

This report was supplemented with information from the Associated Press.

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Sen. Marco Rubio to swear in Miami-Dade commissioner Rebeca Sosa on Friday

Miami-Dade Commissioners Rebeca Sosa becomes Miami-Dade commission’s first Hispanic chairwoman when she is sworn in on Friday by U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio.

Also being sworn in is fellow commissioner Lynda Bell, who is now the vice chair. Miami-Dade County Judge Gladys Perez will swear in Bell

The installation ceremony will be at 11:30 a.m. ceremony at the commission chambers at the Stephen Clark Center, 111 NW First St.

First elected in 2001, Sosa represents District 6, which includes areas of Miami, Coral Gables, West Miami, Hialeah and Miami Springs, as well as unincorporated zones.

Sosa’s office explained the Florida Senator is doing the honors at the historic swearing in because the two are long-time friends.

Bell who was elected in 2010 represents District 8, which encompasses a significant area of southeastern Miami-Dade, including the municipalities of Palmetto Bay, Cutler Bay and Homestead with portions of Kendall an the Redlands.

Sosa and Bell won two-year terms in November.

The installation ceremony is open to the public.

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Undercover Boss Gets Chastised by Pushy Manager

A verbally abusive manager is bound to get his comeuppance on the next Undercover Boss.

PICS: Celebrity Dream Jobs

President of Moe's Southwest Grill, Paul Damico, gets a rude awakening while going through employee training at one of the restaurant's branches. Under the alias Marc, Paul is chastised by a store manager on a power trip.

"Tito's a little flippant with me," Paul says, who felt the atmosphere was less than professional. "As the leader of the brand, I don't like to see managers run a shift like this."

Paul grows more irritated as he realizes that Tito has been treating all of the associates with the same lack of respect.

"I'm not okay with what is happening in front of the guests," says Paul.

Click the video for more. Watch an all-new Undercover Boss Friday at 8/7c on CBS.

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B'klyn teen dialed 911 more than 400 times for fake emergencies: police

A Brooklyn teen dialed 911 more than 400 times to phone in fake emergencies, police said yesterday.

Dean Whylie, 16, disguised his voice as a girl when he made 404 calls reporting non-existent incidents, starting on May 26 of last year, police added.

“He reported police officers needing assistance, shots fired, motor vehicle accidents and disputes,” a police source said.

Whylie allegedly used two phones that weren’t yet activated, but were set up for emergency calls only — which made it difficult to trace the hundreds of fake reports, police said.

At least 329 bogus incidents were reported at locations in the 70 Precinct, which includes Kensington, cops added. Other fake calls reported crimes in Borough Park and other parts of southern Brooklyn, according to police.

Investigators finally traced cell phone pings to the teen’s home on East 22nd Street in Ditmas Park, where he made his last call Monday, police said.

The teen gave no explanation as to why he made the prank calls, cops said.

He was arrested Tuesday afternoon and charged with reckless endangerment, criminal impersonation, obstruction of governmental administration, filing false reports and criminal nuisance, police said.

One of the two phones — which had been used to dial 186 bogus calls — was recovered, cops added.

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Prices for Miami Beach luxury condos soar to records

Ultra-luxury condominiums on South Beach are fetching nosebleed prices.

On Tuesday, a penthouse at the Setai Resort at 2001 Collins Avenue closed for $27 million — the highest price ever for a South Florida condominium, according to real estate agents.

“We’re definitely seeing the market turning upward,” said Jeff Miller, of Zilbert International Realty in Miami, who represented the buyer in the sale of the palatial 7,100-square-foot condominium. “We’re seeing buyers come in from all over the globe.”

Just a few weeks ago, Ohio coal mining businessman Wayne Boich Jr. completed the sale of his Icon South Beach penthouse at 450 Alton Road in the uber-trendy South of Fifth neighborhood for just under $21 million.

The 6-bedroom, 7 1/2-bath Icon condo sparked a bidding war that drove the sale $2 million above the listing price — a level that is three times the $7 million Boich paid in July 2007 in the depths of the bust. It was a record price for a Miami Beach bayside condo.

“The luxury market is on fire in South Beach — especially the South of Fifth neighborhood,” said Dora Puig, principal of PuigWerner Real Estate Services, who was the listing broker for the Icon unit. “It’s moving Miami to totally different pricing points.”

The Setai’s record may not reign for long.

Penthouse 2 in the decade-old Continuum South tower at 100 South Pointe Drive in the South of Fifth neighborhood is on the market for $39 million.

That is a record listing price for a Miami-Dade condominium, according to Puig, who also snagged that listing.

Amid the market sizzle, Puig bumped up the asking price late last summer from $35 million.

The penthouse, which has 11,000 square feet of interior space, belongs to Manhattan real estate developer Ian Bruce Eichner, who built the Continuum project at the tip of South Beach and kept the trophy for himself.

The Continuum penthouse, which has 6,000 square feet of deck and a rooftop heated pool, boasts sweeping 13 1/2-foot ceilings that give the feel of a single-family home. The floor-to-ceiling glass walls offer a 360-degree view of the Atlantic Ocean, Biscayne Bay, downtown Miami and Miami Beach from 40 stories up.

“It looks down on Fisher Island, way down,” Puig said with a smile.

The unit has a private interior elevator, of course, and stretches over two indoor levels and two largely exterior levels.

One big plus: It has a gated entrance and sits on an expansive enclave of rolling lawns and gardens adjacent to a city park at the tip of the island.

The unit comes with an additional 874-square-foot guest quarters that would delight most mortals. “The guest unit is intended for professional quarters: the maid, the nanny, the chef, the pilot,” Puig explained.

Also included is a snazzy cabana on the beach.

Eichner has used it as a vacation home and once rented it to Tom Cruise for a couple of months while he was in Miami to film Rock of Ages.

On Thursday, Puig hosted Miami’s power brokers for a look at the Continuum penthouse over champagne and hors d’oeuvres. Next week, she plans to spend three days in New York touting the property to high-end brokers.

Such palatial properties typically are paid for in cash. But what would a monthly payment be?

With a 20 percent down payment of $7.8 million, the buyer would have to finance $31.2 million.

“I don’t know that I’d be able to find anybody willing to go that high on one unit,” warned Steve Schneider, a mortgage broker who is owner and president of Abacus Lending Group in South Miami.

If a buyer could line up a 15-year fixed rate mortgage at 3.5 percent, the monthly payment for principal and interest would be $223,043.35.

“I’d hate to see the tax bill,” said Schneider.

According to Miami-Dade County Property Appraiser records, the 2012 property tax bill on the Continuum penthouse was $264,896.17. That was based on an assessed value of just $9.5 million, less than half what the Property Appraiser listed as the market value of $19.3 million. The tax break came as a result of the state law that caps increases in assessed values on non-homesteaded property at 10 percent a year.

The condo maintenance fee for Eichner’s unit runs $7,624 a month. “I think that’s low for what you get,” said Puig.

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Miami officer relieved of duty in corruption probe

Another Miami police officer has been relieved of duty as part of an ongoing probe of suspected corruption rooted at the police department’s Model City substation, sources said.

On Tuesday, officer Angel Mercado, 29, was relieved of duty with pay while the investigation continues. Mercado is at least the seventh officer to resign or be relieved of duty in the wake of the probe, which focuses on a group of officers suspected of providing off-the-books protection for a Liberty City gambling house.

Arrests are expected in the next few weeks from the investigation, which is being led by the FBI and the Internal Affairs Unit of the Miami Police Department.

Scott Hiaasen

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