"I am not a big businessman. This is all about having a dream. I worked hard and had a vision."

Alan Faena, the Argentine developer-alchemist who stoked the transmutation of Buenos Aires’ derelict Puerto Madero district into real-estate gold, stands chatting on a corner on a desolate stretch of Collins Avenue that’s been leapfrogged by Miami Beach’s rampaging redevelopment.

Someone speeding by might mistake the spindly Faena, who’s garbed head to toe in his trademark white — loose, tunic-like white shirt and trousers, white fedora — for a wayward santero. He’s not.

Faena is the man who aims to singlehandedly turn sleepy mid-Beach into the city’s resplendent new epicenter.

Since he began gobbling up whole city blocks along Collins last year, Faena has engaged in a dizzying contest of Can you top this? with himself.

Read more at the Miami Herald.