County deal would replace 11 Venetian Causeway bridges

A $10.6 million agreement between EAC Consulting Inc. and the Florida Department of Transportation will shift to Miami-Dade County and lead to design plans to replace 11 bridges on the historic Venetian Causeway from North Bayshore Drive in Miami to Purdy Avenue in Miami Beach.

County commissioners approved the agreement in a transportation committee meeting. Work on the plans would begin immediately after full commission approval.

Construction is expected to begin 33 months after a notice to proceed and then take about four years, a memorandum from county Chief Operations Officer Jimmy Morales says.

The agreement, solely for design services, includes a contingency of $969,199 for unforeseen work.

EAC already studied rehabilitation or replacement of the bridges ordered by the state Department of Transportation in June 2012. The county and state split the $1,750,000 cost. The county then decided to take over and amend that agreement to enable EAC to provide final design and plans preparation services to replace the 11 bridges, the memorandum says.

Ryan Fisher, bridge engineering manager for the Department of Transportation Public Works, said at the committee meeting that the county had been requesting the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) to move forw ard with a final design for the bridges and the department said it would not begin that design. Thus, the county decided to take over the contract FDOT currently has with the company.

Under the newly approved resolution, the company is to prepare contract documents to design and construct 11 new bridges along the Venetian Causeway, including plans, specifications, supporting engineering analysis, calculations and other technical documents that a contractor would use to develop the project and test the project components.

The Venetian Causeway, built in 1926, crosses Biscayne Bay and connects mainland Miami to Miami Beach through six man-made residential islands connected by 10 fixed bridges and two movable bridges. The median sale price of houses on the islands now is $1.2 million, according to real estate firm Redfin.

Commissioner Sally Heyman said she was concerned over historical preservation of the bridges, listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1989 and designated by Miami and Miami Beach as a local historic landmark.

“The historic nature is a priority in the replacement of these bridges,” Mr. Fisher responded.

Restoration of the bridges was part of an unsolicited proposal by a group of firms, identified as the Plan Z Consortium, composed of equity investor entity Partners Group (USA) Inc. and consultant entities Zyscovich Architects and J Kardys Strategies LLC, to design, build, finance, operate and maintain the Rickenbacker Causeway and the Venetian Causeway.

After residents, businesses, and elected leaders requested the county commission to leave the Venetian Causeway out of the county’s competitive solicitation, the Venetian was ultimately removed from the plans before Mayor Daniella Levine Cava cancelled the entire solicitation in December.

“Let the Venetian stand on its own, not because it’s not to be considered as a toll road for improvement, but it needs to have dialogue, and the existing work being done by FDOT and the historic preservation, and the potential for federal infrastructure dollars will play a part in decisions made for the various stakeholders there,” Commissioner Heyman told an October 2021 commission meeting.