Developer says he still can finance Rickenbacker Causeway upgrade

Improve safety for cyclists, replace and enhance Bear Cut Bridge, deal with resiliency and sea level rise, and create a 20-acre park and beach on Virginia Key were improvements the Plan Z Consortium intended to develop as part of an unsolicited proposal for the Venetian and Rickenbacker causeways.

First presented to the county last summer, the proposal was killed after the county decided to cancel the request for proposals (RFP) procedure in January even before developers Partners Group, Zyscovich Architects, and former Miami-Dade parks director Jack Kardys got to officially submit their plan.

“The terrible thing is to be rejected before you even have a chance to submit,” said Bernard Zyscovich, founder and CEO of Zyscovich Architects, in an exclusive interview with Miami Today. The proposal he put together had many features that he could not explain to the community while the RFP was issued by the county as it fell under the cone of silence, prohibiting any communication regarding a particular bid solicitation after it has been issued.

Among these were special vehicle lanes for residents of Virginia Key to avoid being stuck in traffic during events and a redesign of the landscape that included adding artificial reefs to reverse the damage of construction.

Their unsolicited proposal, now in the public record, included a separated bicycle and pedestrian lane along the entire Rickenbacker Causeway, the elevation and re-alignment of the Rickenbacker Causeway on Virginia Key, the development of a 20-acre park and beach on Virginia Key, and the improvement of the Venetian Causeway.

The proposers did not include any commercial components in their plan. These were added by the county once they issued the RFP, Mr. Zyscovich said. The county’s document includes the development of public park concessions.

“We did not include any commercial project,” Mr. Zyscovich said. “We didn’t have billboards, we didn’t have banquet halls, we didn’t have commercialization of any kind. As a resident, I can tell you, I would love to have a place to go sit by the water and just eat a sandwich and have a beer, that’d be great, but it’s not part of our proposal.”

Since the county rescinded the RFP, the group stopped working on the project, but Mr. Zyscovich said that if the county decides to start a competitive process for the Rickenbacker Causeway, he believes the funding source, Swiss private investors Partners Group, would be willing to come to the table again.

“I suppose they would want to be sure that if this does come back in some form, and we were able to finally present what we’re doing, that there would be a good faith, honest analysis to evaluate what it is,” Mr. Zyscovich said.

County commissioners already approved in early May a $10.6 million agreement between EAC Consulting and the Florida Department of Transportation to design plans to replace 11 bridges of the Venetian Causeway from Miami to Miami Beach.

Mayor Daniella Levine Cava also said last week that she is allocating $250,000 to be used for short-term bicyclist safety enhancement measures on the Rickenbacker, two days after two cyclists were struck by a Jeep and killed.

She released a report dated May 6 that estimated the total cost for construction of a replacement for the Bear Cut Bridge at $90 million. The county identified $5 million for the planning study but no funds for the design and construction.

The consortium had a higher price tag for the Bear Cut Bridge replacement, which included eliminating the debt on the existing bridge for previous repairs and an entire new bridge next to the William M. Powell Bridge for the sole use of cyclists.

“I don’t know enough about what’s in their proposal, but I do know that to replace only the Bear Cut Bridge does not address the rest of the corridor,” Mr. Zyscovich said. “Frankly, the $90 million doesn’t really do anything for the safety on Virginia Key, or Hobie Island, or Powell bridge or any of them.”

Mr. Zyscovich also said replacement of the bridge could take 10 to 15 years while if the project were privately funded it could take only around five years. “We could replace the $90 million bridge as part of our proposal, and we would have everything complete within five years including the bridge,” he said.

“Privately funded, we’re able to do the NEPA [National Environmental Policy Act] environmental studies, we’re able to do the engineering, we’re able to do the landscaping, we’re able to do the costing, we’re able to deal with hiring whoever we need to hire to build it and design it all at one time,” he added.

Miami-Dade and Key Biscayne residents raised concerns during the RFP process, arguing they did not have enough information about the project, that it was too ambitious and mainly focused on cyclists instead of addressing traffic issues, and claimed the solicitation had a very specific design criteria built around the unsolicited proposal.

As Miami Today previously reported, the Village of Key Biscayne Council unanimously supported Mayor Levine Cava’s recommendation to cancel the request for proposals to develop, maintain and operate the Rickenbacker Causeway and the Bear Cut Bridge, and called for creation of a working group of key stakeholders to start the process again to define priorities and needs.

Disappointed about the cancelation of the RFP, Mr. Zyscovich said that this is not an unusual project. “In Northern Europe they do this all the time; they build bicycle infrastructure, just like they build road infrastructure,” he said.

“So, why in Miami is it so hard to get the thought through that we can make driving the car safer, better, [with] less congestion, not impacted by events that congest the roadway, but we also can make safe, separated bicycle running areas; and we also can have a new park and we also can create a roadway today that’s future-proofed against sea level rise so we don’t have to deal with it later. We can get everything all at once and we have somebody who’s willing to pay for it.”