Miami Beach to move forward on Collins Park garage following failed Zaha Hadid bid

Rejected design by Zaha Hadid/BBA for the Collins Park garage
Rejected design by Zaha Hadid/BBA for the Collins Park garage

The Miami Beach City Commission is moving forward with a new bidding process for the Collins Park garage, a project that gained attention for a failed bid by the late architect Zaha Hadid.

The commission will vote on Wednesday whether to adopt a resolution ranking proposals for the new request for proposals (RFP). The city received seven proposals for the garage after it issued the new RFP in September: Burke Construction Group, Finfrock Construction Inc., Kaufman Lynn Construction, KVC Constructors Inc., Munilla Construction Management, Plaza Construction Group and Stiles Construction.

Of those, the evaluation committee narrowed it down to four, with KVC Constructors as the top bidder, Plaza Construction as No. 2, Finfrock as the third ranked and Kaufman Lynn as the fourth. KVC has worked on five major garages in Miami-Dade, including the Braman Motors Parking Garage, City View Parking Garage, Museum Parking Garage, the Palms Parking Garage and Wynwood Parking Garage, according to city documents.

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In Miami Beach, KVC built the Pennsylvania Avenue garage. The second-ranked bidder, Plaza Construction, cited its experience building 3.4 million square feet near Collins Park. And the third-ranked bidder, Finfrock, is partnering with Arquitectonica, ArquitectonicaGeo and Kimley Horn. Finfrock and Arquitectonica completed the 720-car Venture garage in Aventura.

The proposed new garage, located in the Collins Park neighborhood of Miami Beach, has been in the works for years. Hadid, who died unexpectedly in March of last year, was involved in the project since 2011. She was selected to design the project, which would replace two city-owned lots behind the Miami City Ballet and neighboring library, but negotiations failed due to high costs and design preferences. Miami Beach commissioners ended the contract with Hadid and local partner Berenblum Busch Architecture (BBA).

Following Wednesday’s commission meeting, the top four firms would then come up with more detailed proposals, including technical, cost and design proposals. As of last year, the city’s budget was about $27 million, according to the Miami Herald.