Courthouse repairs cost less, faster than inspection indicated

County courthouse basement repairs were faster than Miami-Dade authorities expected after consultant EXP U.S. Services Inc. determined following an extensive inspection last October that repairs to the 140-plus basement columns for an estimated $3.79 million were no longer necessary, two senior Internal Services Department officials confirmed to Miami Today.

The courthouse got its 40-plus year recertification from the City of Miami, Alex A. Alfonso, division director of the Internal Services Department (ISD), confirmed to Miami Today. The county paid the company $183,974.70 to repair some of the columns in the basement and other areas of the courthouse at 73 W Flagler St. and then report the findings.

The repair permit was obtained Nov. 15, 2021, and the certificate of completion was issued Feb. 4, Mr. Alfonso told the newspaper in an email. The county made a one-time payment to the company.

“After further investigation, including additional destructive assessments by the county’s structural consultant, it was determined that the steel structure was in good condition,” Mr. Alfonso wrote. “The consultant submitted all the required reports to the City of Miami, which led to the issuance of the recertification.”

In a Feb, 9 letter signed by Maurice L. Pons, City of Miami building official, the old courthouse building was given the 40-year re-certification. “The process is now complete and the building is granted re-certification,” the document says.

As the newspaper previously reported, the 28-story building was temporarily closed in July 2021 until repairs were completed. The move came after collapse of Champlain Towers in Surfside raised concern about the safety of old buildings such as the courthouse, built between 1925 and 1928.

The company was hired to inspect the building and EXP reported in July “that the columns at the basement level on the NW and SW quadrants are operating in reduced capacity.”

EXP engineers found that on rainy days water leaked through the floor slab at the locations of several columns and they saw longitudinal cracks along the beams and on the existing columns’ concrete encasement.

The document also said the “basement column repairs should be completed in an orderly and expeditious fashion,” and noted no structural reason the repairs could not progress while the building’s operating floors were in full service.

The company then performed destructive investigations of the basement concrete columns and removed the concrete encasement at 14 columns, selected based on the observed condition of the concrete encasement at the time of the initial phase inspections and the location of the columns compared to the building cores/bases.

EXP reported last October that nothing observed in the basement and in floors 1 to 27 suggested a need to alter its previous recommendation that the building could and should remain occupied, the engineers wrote.

“The exposed steel columns were observed to be in good condition and did not exhibit significant deterioration or corrosion,” the document says.

The engineering team wrote in the report that “based on all of the 14 columns being exposed to the extent practical, including removing the floor and exposing the column bases, base plates and footings, it is reasonable to conclude that the columns in the basement have only minimal deterioration or corrosion and are deemed to be structurally safe for their intended use and occupancy.”

Miami Today tried to reach EXP U.S. Services Inc. engineering team that worked on both reports but received no word back.

In a pre-bid and site visit to the courthouse basement that took place Aug. 8, 2021, at least a dozen companies were initially interested in making the repairs.

Ultimately, two local companies bid to complete the project. Home Express Corp DBA HE Builders made two proposals with costs between $3.5

million and $3.8 million; and Critical Path Services Inc. presented two proposals with costs between $4.9 million and $5.9 million, according to the information provided last October by Alba Vargas, senior assistant to the director of ISD.

The county canceled the bid process Nov. 5 and rejected all proposals received.