Collins Park parking garage proposal sent to bidders

The Miami Beach City Commission on Wednesday agreed to issue a new request for proposals to build a city-owned garage in the booming Collins Park neighborhood.  

The planned garage for 340 23rd Street has been on hold for several years after city officials balked at an original proposal submitted by the late architect Zaha Hadid, which city officials said would have cost nearly double what the city had originally planned.

While they approved the request for proposals, the commission dropped a residential use requirement that could have led to housing being built either on the site or within the garage. Commissioner Joy Malakoff, a longtime advocate of affordable housing for Miami Beach workers, told The Real Deal housing could be added later if needed, but parking is the overriding need at the moment in the heavily congested neighborhood.   

Other commissioners stressed that any garage on the site should contain ground floor retail. An evaluation committee narrowed seven original proposals for the garage down to four bidders with KVC Constructors as the top bidder, Plaza Construction Inc., as No. 1, Finrock as the third ranked and Kaufman Lynn as the fourth. KVC has worked on five major garage projects 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.    

Hadid, who died unexpectedly last year in Miami Beach, was the original architect selected for the project, which would replace two city-owned lots behind the Miami City Ballet and neighboring library. Miami Beach commissioners ended the contract with Hadid and local partner Berenblum Busch Architecture after negotiations got bogged down over unexpectedly high costs and design issues.   

The four top firms are now expected to come up with detailed design proposals for the project, which is expected to cost about $27 million.   

Commissioners on Wednesday also took first steps towards allowing advertising in city-owned garages, approving issuing a request for proposals that would allow bidders to bring proposals before the city for ads in city garages providing they are not easily visible from the street.

Several commissioners, like Joy Malakoff expressed reservations about the measure, telling her colleagues, “I don’t believe people should be bombarded by ads.” Commissioner Mickey Steinberg told commissioners she “was not OK with ads being visible from the street,” and that if ads are placed in garages at least a quarter of them should be PSA’s.