Tony Goldman, the real estate mogul, restauranteur, and entrepreneur largely responsible for the contemporary art- and mural-driven redevelopment of Miami’s Wynwood neighborhood, the art deco architecture-revitalizing resurrection of South Beach, and the man in charge of New York City’s most prominent mural space, died of heart failure yesterday in New York, the Miami New Times reports. He was 68.

Goldman and then-dealer Jeffrey Deitch masterminded the Wynwood Walls street art project that since 2009 has coincided every year with Art Basel Miami Beach, often putting up participating artists — who’ve included Kenny Scharf and Shepard Fairey — in one of his South Beach hotels.

“Wynwood spoke to me right away,” Goldman told the New York Times in 2010. “It had an urban grit that was ready to be discovered and articulated.”

In addition to the ongoing revitalization of Wynwood, the New York-based developer had spent recent years working on long-term projects in Philadelphia, Newark, and Downtown Miami. “He has a superrefined instinct for what creates a great neighborhood and the potential for commercial success,” Neisen O. Kasdin, a former Goldman attorney, told the Times.

“To the community he touched, he was a transforming, once-in-a-lifetime figure,” the Goldman family said in a statement to the New Times. “To us, he was a devoted husband, wonderful father, and doting grandfather.”

— Benjamin Sutton

Tags: Art Wynwood, Benjamin Sutton, obituary, Tony Goldman, Wynwood Walls