Behind the art-decorated walls along Miami-Dade International Airport’s mile-long north terminal, construction workers are building at a feverish pace the last major piece of an overall $6.2-billion capital improvement program. After a decade that saw delays and disputes, the team hired to build the stalled $3-billion terminal expansion expects an on-time delivery next year, with no major claims.
Work on the 50-gate terminal began in 2001, with main tenant American Airlines as the manager and a joint venture of Turner Construction Co. and Austin Commercial as construction manager. But after numerous problems, American agreed to turn the job over to the Miami-Dade County Aviation Dept. A local joint venture of Parsons Transportation Group and Odebrecht USA (POJV) won the rebid $542-million CM contract. The team inherited a chaotic site, recalls Gilberto Nieves, Odebrecht USA chief executive officer. “The subcontractors said, ‘We don’t want to touch it,’ ” Nieves says.