Moss and joint venture partners Hunt Construction Group of Scottsdale, Ariz., and Mars Contractors of Miami are building the $430-million, 37,000-seat Florida Marlins Major League Baseball ballpark owned by Miami-Dade County. The project is 35% complete and on schedule.
Education Some university work, even though it has slowed due to state budget constraints, continues, but K-12 projects have dried up as enrollments stabilized or declined. Broward County Public Schools has canceled projects, including the $81-million Stranahan High School modernization and an expansion at Oakridge Elementary.
Moss & Associates has begun a $1.4-million renovation at Nova Southeastern University Athletic Facility in Davie.
Moss Miller, a partnership between Moss and Miller Construction Co. of Fort Lauderdale, expects to begin construction early next year on the Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Ecosystem Science at the Nova Southeastern University Oceanographic Center in Dania Beach. An American Recovery and Reinvestment Act grant funded $15 million of the $34-million, design-build project.
Cannon Design of Grand Island, N.Y., and ACAI of Fort Lauderdale serve as the design partners.
Turner is completing the $19-million College of Arts and Letters Building at Florida Atlantic University Boca Raton campus.
Also at FAU, Balfour Beatty is building a $19-million research laboratory at the Harbor Branch campus and a $56-million student housing apartment complex at the Boca Raton campus, which the company is designing, building and operating. It will be ready next summer.
At Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers, Kraft has started the $16-million, 400-bed Palmetto Hall dormitory project.
Other Public Projects Moss says that as state and county budgets become stretched, more capital improvement projects have been cut. However, his firm continues to work on the $89-million Okeechobee Correctional Institution Work Camp for the Florida Dept. of Corrections and the second phase of a $232-million criminal justice expansion program for Palm Beach County.
The Weitz Co. of West Palm Beach received the construction management contract to build Broward County’s new $200-million, 17-story courthouse.
Transportation Work The $1.2-billion Interstate 595 Corridor Improvements Project remains a bright spot, with design in the advanced stages and construction beginning. Concessionaire ACS Infrastructure Development of Spain, doing business as I-595 Express, will design, build, finance, operate and maintain for 35 years three reversible express toll lanes added to the median. The 10.5-mi project spans from Interstate 95 to Interstate75 in Broward County and includes bridge work, frontage road connections and related work.
I-595 Express has divided the project’s construction into five segments. Dragados USA is the lead contractor and plans to self-perform many of the 62 bridges along the corridor. It is subcontracting some roadway sections.
Bergeron Land Development of Pembroke Pines, Fla., began working in February on construction of the 2-mi section C, around Pine Island Road. Ranger Construction of Pompano Beach, Fla., will build segment D from Davie Road to I-95.
More than 100 companies with 1,300 employees, including FDOT staff, are working on the project and the number of workers is expected to remain high, says Joe Borello, project manager for the Florida Dept. of Transportation. The project is scheduled for completion in 2014.
“It’s a shot in the arm down in South Florida as far as keeping people working,” says Phil Schwab, vice president of transportation for RS&H of Jacksonville, the I-595 corridor design consultant.
In Broward and Palm Beach counties, Cone & Graham of West Palm Beach is working on a $39.5-million, design-build project for FDOT to create a four-lane flyover on Dixie Highway/State Road 811. Construction began in April 2010 and is expected to be complete in summer 2012.
On the West Coast, FDOT has several ARRA projects under way. Johnson Bros. of Lithia is building a $25.5-million southbound span for the Judge S.S. Jolley Bridge to Marco Island in Collier County. And Posen Construction of Shelby Township, Mich., began a $30-million extension to Metro Parkway from Six Mile Cypress Parkway to U.S. Route 41 in Lee County.
The Broward County Aviation Dept. also has projects in the works. At the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport in Fort Lauderdale, D. Stephenson Construction of Fort Lauderdale is working on a $4.4-million, stimulus-funded project to complete a ramp rehabilitation project around concourses D, E and F, scheduled for completion in December.
The aviation department went to bid this summer on the second phase of Taxiway C and for high-speed exit taxiways, with construction expected to start in November.
Useful Sources:
• Cape Coral VA Clinic http://www.baypines.va.gov/news/LeeCountyOPCConstruction.asp
• Florida Atlantic University Facilities Planning http://www.fau.edu/facilities/fp/
• Florida Marlins Ballpark http://florida.marlins.mlb.com/fla/ballpark/ballpark_construction_updates.jsp
• Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Ecosystem Science http://www.nova.edu/ocean/nist/nist_2010.html
• I-595 Corridor Improvements http://www.i-595.com
• I-595 Expresshttp://www.i595express.com/