Miami Today: Week of Thursday, December 17, 2015

Page 1

WEEK OF THURSDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2015

A Singular Voice in an Evolving City

WWW.MIAMITODAYNEWS.COM $4.00

FINANCIAL TRENDS

All-cash realty deals tumble 10 percentage points, pg. 13 PORT SIBLINGS: Miami now has a sister port agreement with Hamburg’s historic port that was established in 1189 by Frederick the First. Manny Gonzalez of the Office of Economic Development and International Trade told the county’s Trade and Tourism Committee last week this will be a profitable relationship, as Germany is the 16th largest tourism market in the world and our fourth largest market for visitors to Miami-Dade. Commissioners expressed pleasure and congratulations to Mr. Gonzalez and Port Director Juan Kuryla for establishing the relationship. Moving forward, Commissioner Xavier Suarez warned officials involved with international trade to be careful if dealing with systems like China and Cuba, which have lately convinced international economic organizations to go to Purchasing Power Parity as an alternative quantification, which exaggerates their Gross Domestic Product, Mr. Suarez said, possibly by a factor of 5% in the case of Cuba.

Miami’s Federal Reserve team citing economic uptick, pg. 15

THE ACHIEVER

BY SUSAN DANSEYAR

THE LAST CHECK: Miami city commissioners have approved the city’s final payment for the massive PortMiami tunnel. The commission approved a final interest payment of $1,512,189.20 to the State of Florida Department of Transportation for the tunnel project, completed and opened in 2014. Two one-way tunnels stretch under a section of Biscayne Bay from the MacArthur Causeway on Watson Island to PortMiami on Dodge Island. One tunnel enters the port and a separate tunnel exits the port via the same route. The $1 billion-plus project was built by a public-private partnership between the state, Miami-Dade County, City of Miami and the private MAT Concessionaire LLC. MORE STORM SEWERS $$$: Miami city commissioners have approved adding $2 million to a two-year contract to repair storm sewers. The request came from the Public Works Department. The contract will now pay JVA Engineering Contractor Inc. no more than $4 million for the duration of the contract. The legislation says this will give the Public Works Department “greater flexibility in expeditiously constructing the backlog of drainage improvement projects.” The work consists of installing and repairing the storm sewer system around the city. The projects are to alleviate severe flooding locations throughout the city with the installation of French drains, cross pipes, manhole structures, catch basins, deep drainage well structures, flap valves, rock drains, regrading of the swale areas and incidental surface restoration including sidewalk, driveway, curb, and asphalt pavement.

Franklin Sirmans

Photo by Marlene Quaroni

Expanding the mission of Pérez Art Museum Miami The profile is on Page 4

State-led Honduras trip yields $11 million sales BY CARLA VIANNA

More than half the businesses that flew to Honduras this month on an export sales mission led by Enterprise Florida secured new trade ties. The 14 firms alone are projecting $11,335,000 in export sales within two years as a direct result of the trip. In what Enterprise Florida – the state’s economic development agency – called a matchmaking mission, 33 persons from about 20 Florida companies and institutions flew to Tegucigalpa, Honduras, on Dec. 1 for three days and were matched with potential business partners. Among delegates were executives from PortMiami, Port Everglades and Port Manatee as well as the University of Miami, said Manny Mencia, Coral Gables-based senior VP of the International Trade & Business Development division of Enterprise Florida. The businesses included small to midsize manufacturers, small to midsize technology firms and value-added service providers. “One of our primary missions is to help Florida companies penetrate new markets,”

AGENDA

Stalled rail site project put on track

Mr. Mencia said, adding that most participating companies were entering the Honduras market for the first time. Immediately after the mission, a group of Taiwanese investors met with Honduran trade officials in Coral Gables to expand trade between their nations. Although Honduras is a small market, Mr. Mencia said, its impact in Florida reaches beyond its size. Honduras is Florida’s ninth largest merchandise trading partner. Last year, Florida accounted for 42% of all US trade with Honduras, and the state’s total merchandise trade with Honduras is up 10% through the first six months of 2015, Enterprise says. “With the commodities downturn, some of our more traditional markets in South America have been a little bit on the slow side,” Mr. Mencia said. “But the reason we think Central America and Mexico will perform much better – and are performing much better – is because their economies are much more intertwined with the US.” Last year, bilateral trade between Florida and Honduras reached $4.5 billion. This year, Mr. Mencia said, trade is expected to near $5 billion.

Miami-Dade commissioners revived a long-stalled plan for development at the Coconut Grove Metrorail Station by voting Tuesday to sign a lease with GRP Grove Metro Station LLC, an affiliate of Grass River Property. The 90-year lease for five acres at 2780 SW 27th Ave. where the development firm will build a $196 million commercial complex and improve the station comes in the wake of Grass River Holdings negotiating a settlement over litigation tied to a failed project on the site. The county had an agreement with Coconut Grove Station Development in 2000 to build a similar complex but the developer didn’t continue the project and First Citizens Bank sued Miami-Dade for $6.5 million over a loan it advanced to the developer. Grass River bought the loan and won the development deal as part of the settlement. The complex is to include a hotel, retail, apartments and offices on the bordering parking lot. Grass River is to pay MiamiDade $500,000 upfront, then $450,000 a year or 3% of revenues. The agreement also requires the developer to spend $5 million to upgrade the Metrorail station with improved escalators and elevators and a new bus terminal and reserve 204 parking spaces for transit users. Commissioner Daniella Levine Cava mentioned Tuesday that workforce housing is a key issue and pointed out it was part of the settlement but not a requirement. She asked about providing incentives to the developers but officials who could address her questions weren’t present. Attorney Al Dotson, representing the developer, said Grass River aims to exceed county workforce housing requirements and will strive to provide 25% workforce units. Commissioner Xavier Suarez amended the resolution to include those goals.

Honduras is also a top cargo market for both Port Everglades and PortMiami, Mr. Mencia said. “We not only go there to match-make but also to expand Florida ties with leading business organizations,” he said, ticking off a list of organizations the group met with, including the Honduran equivalent of a national seaport association and the National Industrial Association of Honduras (ANDI), among others. Enterprise Florida conducts 25 to 30 international events yearly, Mr. Mencia said. In fiscal 2014-15, the organization hosted 29 major international trade shows and missions, generating more than $750 million in total projected export sales for Florida businesses. Plans for 2016 are already underway. A similar matchmaking mission to Korea and Taiwan is scheduled for April 1523, Mr. Mencia said. An even larger trip – as many as 50 companies are welcome to participate – will embark to Mexico May 23-26. There are current talks of a trip to Argentina next fall. Enterprise Florida is Traffic gridlock shifting transitnow recruiting participants for all three oriented projects into gear, pg. 3 missions.

TRAFFIC SHIFTS TRANSIT-ORIENTED PROJECTS INTO GEAR ... 3

OFFICIALS ASK WHEN AIRPORT WILL REBUILD TERMINAL ...

VIEWPOINT: BEST CHRISTMAS GIFT A COMMISSION RAISE ... 6

MANUFACTURING TALENT GAP A PERCEPTION QUESTION ... 10

DIAZ QUESTIONS EMPOWERING TRANSPORTATION TRUST ... 7

TWO KEY LINKS MISSING TO BRING TRI-RAIL DOWNTOWN ... 11

292 NEW APARTMENTS WILL AFFECT HISTORIC DISTRICT ...

COUNTY HEARS FRUSTRATION WITH RISING TOLLS COSTS ... 23

8

9


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.