If someone tells you to meet them at "the farmers market" in Brickell this weekend, ask which one. There are two, they run on different schedules, and they are not run by the same people.
That mix-up is a small thing, but it says something bigger about where this neighborhood actually is right now. Brickell is building a second, parallel version of itself under the Metrorail tracks, and residents have already started living in it, using a schedule that does not match the one running a few blocks away at the mall. The park is still, officially, a construction project. The habits around it are already real.
The Backyard You Already Have
The stretch of The Underline that runs through Brickell, officially called the Brickell Backyard, has been open since February 2021. It is not a strip of grass waiting for a ribbon cutting. It has a name for almost every piece of it: the Typoe Sculpture Garden, an Urban Gym with a half court and a running track, a sound stage plaza, and butterfly gardens planted around the gathering spaces.
What makes it function like a backyard instead of a public art installation is the bike share. Inter&Co, the park's lifestyle sponsor since a kickoff event in December 2024, put more than 100 e-bikes into rotation along the corridor, alongside three branded Inter&Co Cafes and a community screen at the Brickell stage. You don't need a car, a bike of your own, or an appointment to use any of it. You need the app and a green crosswalk.
A Hoodline report from March 2026 caught residents describing exactly this shift: people are walking dogs, running errands, and commuting by bike along the corridor as part of what one described as their new normal. Meg Daly, the park's founder, put it plainly to a local TV station: "You can walk, you can bike, and you can do it safely." That is not marketing copy. That is a description of a neighborhood that built infrastructure most cities only promise.
Two Markets, Same Neighborhood, Different Rules
Here is where it gets confusing, and where knowing the difference actually matters if you want your Saturday to go the way you planned it.
The Underline runs its own Farmers and Artisanal Market at the Brickell Backyard Promenade, at the green crosswalk on SW 1st Avenue across from SW 9th Street. It is organized through Unite Worldwide's vendor program on the park's own promenade, and it does not run every week. Vendor schedules published by Unite Worldwide put it on the second and fourth Saturday of the month, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., with setup starting at 8 and teardown by 5.
A few blocks away, Brickell City Centre runs its own weekly market under the Metromover's paved path, every Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., with fruit stands, artisanal goods, pet products, and regular live music. It is a mall amenity, not a nonprofit park program, and it never skips a week.
| The Underline Market | Brickell City Centre Market | |
|---|---|---|
| Location | Green crosswalk, SW 1st Ave at SW 9th St | Under the Metromover, Brickell City Centre |
| Frequency | Twice monthly (2nd and 4th Saturday) | Every Saturday |
| Hours | 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. | 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. |
| Run by | Unite Worldwide | Brickell City Centre |
If you showed up at the Underline's crosswalk on the first Saturday of the month expecting a market, you'd find an empty promenade. If you assumed the mall's market was the "real" Underline one, you'd miss the actual park programming entirely. Neither is wrong. They're just not interchangeable, and nothing on either flyer tells you that the other one exists.
The Underline's own event page is specific about getting there without a car: take the Metrorail to Brickell Station, exit north, and walk to the crosswalk, or bike in using the racks at SW 1st Avenue and SW 9th Street. If you're driving anyway, the nearest public parking is at Brickell City Centre or the Publix at Mary Brickell Village, which puts you a five minute walk from either market regardless of which Saturday you picked.
The Free Programming Nobody Advertises Well
Past the markets, the park runs a rotating slate of free classes that don't get much attention outside people who already show up. Baptist Health sponsors a weekly yoga session at the Underline's InterStage. A separate community fitness class, combining strength training with a guided group run, is scheduled on select days through October 18, 2026. Both are free and open, no membership or sign up beyond showing up.
None of this requires the rest of the ten mile park to exist. It's already running on the section that's finished.
What's Still Being Built Under Your Feet
The reason Brickell's segment feels complete while the rest of the county's segment doesn't is that Phase 1, the Brickell Backyard, has been finished since 2021, and Phase 2, which threads past the historic Roads neighborhood and the Simpson Park Hammock toward Vizcaya, wrapped in April 2024. What's left is Phase 3: 7.36 miles connecting SW 19th Avenue near the Vizcaya Metrorail station all the way to Dadeland South, cutting through the City of Miami, Coral Gables, South Miami, and unincorporated county land.
Cost estimates for that final stretch have moved as the project has gone through funding rounds, landing anywhere from $92 million to $109 million depending on which year's estimate you're reading. The county's own fact sheet still lists 2026 as the completion target, without a firmer month attached, and Coral Gables' city construction updates note that Segment 6 of the M-Path will stay closed for installation work through the summer of 2026.
What Phase 3 is actually adding, according to the county and Friends of The Underline, includes pickleball and basketball courts, a skatepark, soccer space, a dedicated Bark Park, and 24 microforests. The build calls for roughly 1,800 new trees and about 350,000 native plants, along with bioswales for stormwater, Dark Sky-compliant lighting, and hydration stations along the trail. None of that is speculative landscaping language. It's what's already specified in the construction fact sheet for the segments now underway.
The park's fundraising has kept pace with the ambition. The 2026 Sneaker Ball, Friends of The Underline's signature gala, raised more than a million dollars for programming this year alone, on top of the public funding from the county, the Federal Transit Administration, the state, and the cities the trail runs through.
Getting the Calendar Right
If you live in Brickell and want to actually use what's already open rather than wait for what's coming, the practical version of all this is short:
- Check which Saturday it is before you head to "the market." The Underline's runs on the 2nd and 4th Saturday. Brickell City Centre's runs every week.
- The e-bike share through Inter&Co works right now, no ownership or dock membership required beyond the app.
- Free yoga and the community fitness class are already part of the weekly rotation at the InterStage, not a future amenity.
- Phase 3's pickleball courts, Bark Park, and microforests are specified and funded, but tied to a 2026 completion window that the county has not narrowed further.
The neighborhood's outdoor life didn't wait for the whole ten miles to open. It organized itself around the mile that already had lighting, a name, and a schedule, and it's worth knowing that schedule well enough to stop guessing which Saturday you meant.
If you're weighing what a neighborhood is actually like day to day, past the market comparisons and the median price, that's usually where the real answer lives. If you'd like a longer conversation about what's happening in Brickell or any of the neighborhoods we cover, reach out to Scott Shuffield and book a consultation.
