Undergrounding utilities in Coral Gables might be less pricy

Coral Gables commissioners were updated last week on the action plan for a citywide undergrounding of utilities and told that the project might not require a bond issue that had been contemplated.

Stantec, the city’s consultant heading the project, presented an update on where undergrounding of electric and communications utilities throughout Coral Gables stands now.

“This project is essentially about electrical reliability and specifically having to do with hurricane and tropical storm hardening,” said Ramon Castella, Stantec’s vice president, during the presentation. “As we know South Florida is in the bull’s-eye of a lot of hurricane activity.”

In the past three years, Stantec’s project lead team has been studying what undergrounding would cost, how it could be done and some preliminary engineering on how it would move forward.

After preliminary community stakeholder engagement discussions with Florida Power & Light (FPL), AT&T and Comcast, the firm got ballpark construction estimates from all three and created a critical path timeline for how the project would advance, Mr. Castella said.

There have been positive developments from FPL and the way it’s looking at undergrounding projects with what the company calls “The Storm Secure Underground Pilot Program,” he said. Essentially, FPL will work with cities, such as Coral Gables, in burying lateral lines and not have the community bear the cost, he said.

“All the ratepayers will pay for it in a base rate across the state. And this isn’t just for Coral Gables – any community that wants undergrounding in Florida over the next 30 years,” Mr. Castella said. “Approximately 40% of the city’s laterals would be buried within the first 10 years, with the balance over the next 20 years after that.”

With option two, Stantec would work out an arrangement with FPL where they would move forward with the program of burying the laterals, but paying them to bury as well the feeders, which transmit power from a generating station or substation to citywide distribution points.

“We still don’t have a cost on that, but FPL is working on it and they’ve pledged to get it to us by the end of the month,” Mr. Castella said. “The city would get a much higher electrical reliability with the whole system from the substations, even the parts that are outside the city, everything goes underground with FPL.”

The third option would include FPL’s 30-year underground pilot program, conversion of overhead FPL feeders up to the substations at the city’s expense, and work with AT&T and Comcast to get them underground as well.

That’s going to take a little more effort and negotiation with the other two utilities, Mr. Castella said.

“We’re recommending moving forward and let us work with getting the cost estimates for the feeders and negotiate with AT&T and Comcast about what they would require and then return to you in two months,” he said. “We also recommend that we proceed for now with the assumption that the city will not be bringing a bond issue to the vote because the cost of doing this will not be the magnitude that we’re talking before, $350 million to $400 million.”

If spread over 10 years or 30 years, this is something the city might be able to store under the capital budget and not have to rely on assessment funding,” Mr. Castella said.

“We think we should maybe hit the pause button on that and let us continue to explore federal grant opportunities, and there’s real ones out there now with some of this infrastructure funding that’s been passed to help pay for those two options should you decide to go that way.”

After pushing for the project’s completion for three years, Mayor Vince Lago said there were talks about some significant funding numbers prior to covid, and these new efforts to save are greatly appreciated.

“I appreciate the route that you’ve taken with your members of the team,” he said. “I would like to see us bring this in for a landing. I’d like to know a schedule that we can accomplish and really understand where we are headed over the next two months.”