A Bridge Too Far: Public opposition grows over FDOT project for new I-395 bridge
Community leaders and public officials are crying foul at the procurement process that took place in the selection of the recently unveiled winning design for the new I-395 bridge. The structure was conceived as a signature world-class project that would forever change Miami’s skyline, revitalize its arts and museum centers, and place it alongside other iconic structures like the Golden Gate Bridge.
Citing a lack of public input and a violation of the 2013 agreement between the City of Miami and the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) on the requirements for building of the bridge, a growing list of local leaders have publicly requested that FDOT put a freeze on the project until there has been further review.
In a letter addressed to FDOT District Secretary Jim Wolfe on May 17, the Town Square Neighborhood Development Corporation (TSNDC), a non-profit entity which advocates for economic and cultural development of the area surrounding the Adrienne Arsht Center, expressed “grave concern” for the project and called on it to “fulfill its commitment to engage in community outreach and seek public involvement and input.” The TSNDC consists of civic leaders and heads of cultural institutions in downtown Miami.
Like many others who have come forth to express concern, including Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez, Miami-Dade County Commissioner Sally Heyman, and community leaders from Overtown, the TSNDC feels that FDOT ultimately undermined the will of the Aesthetics Review Committee (ARC) that was put in place to act as the voice of the people.
“By minimizing the Committee influence on the selection process, and by keeping the prospective Project designs out of the sunshine until after the intent-to-award notification, both the community and the political leadership bodies were disenfranchised,” said Vice Chair of TSNDC Jessica Goldman Srebnick in a letter to the FDOT.
The I-395 bridge has been a longstanding battle between the City of Miami and FDOT. In 2013, then Commissioner Marc Sarnoff and the City of Miami sued the FDOT for the right to have community input on the project citing the need to build a bridge that is reflective of Miami’s spirit as well as its social and cultural institutions. Sarnoff and the City won the lawsuit, which resulted in the creation of an aesthetic review committee and critics see the diminution of that committee’s scoring as a breach of that agreement.
The primary controversy centers around a review process that began as very well defined, but was gradually and significantly diminished. At the issuance of the RFP, it was announced that the ARC and the TRC would both score the aesthetics component equally. However, when the FDOT member of the ARC inexplicacbly dropped out one week before the final vote, FDOT decided to tabulate all remaining nine votes from the two committees equally, effectively giving the ARC 44% of the vote to the TRC’s 56%.
While the winning design team, Archer Western De Moya, received “poor” or “fair” marks by the community-led aesthetics committee, the runner-up, Flour Astaldi MCM, were the only ones to have received a perfect score from various community representatives on the ARC and 21 excellence marks overall.
“This must be rectified. This change produced a result that does not reflect the preference of the Committee and usurps the very purpose of the creation of the Committee – a group created to act as watchdogs of our community; citizen representatives entrusted to enforce the commitments made by FDOT,” added Goldman.
Detractors of the process find this especially concerning, not only because of the last minute submission, which didn’t come with a schedule to back it up, but because Archer Western De Moya was recently terminated from a project on April 20, 2017 by the State of North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) due to an ongoing two-year delay on the completion of a hospital.
The final result was that despite a ten-point deficit in the scores from the ARC and nearly identical scores on the technical side, Archer Wester De Moya was awarded the bid by half a point.
The Flour Astaldi MCM team is expected to file a formal protest to the bid in the coming week.
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