Team punts 50-year airport hotel deal to county commission

A county committee deciding whether to back the mayor’s aim to award a 50-year lease for a Miami International Airport hotel to the owners of the Miami Dolphins and the Fontainebleau Miami Beach instead punted the ball to the county commission to act.

Even deciding not to decide last week demanded two dueling developers’ presentations, nearly three hours of debate and three votes that concluded only when the main dissenter walked away, leaving a 5-0 decision when unanimity was required.

The debate left in its wake a string of issues ranging from why the airport’s operators don’t know what’s buried beneath it to allegations that what Commissioner Raquel Regalado called three “schizophrenic” conflicting memos on the contract caused the hubbub.

But the heart of the issue was whether the process that brought two powerful business leaders jointly to the brink of a hotel deal more than a decade in the making was handled well. Nobody alleged illegality, but judgments were questioned at length.

Mayor Daniella Levine Cava first wrote commissioners to seek the lease, then in December took a firm stance against it and sought a new request for proposals, then reversed herself again after negotiations with FDR Miami, created by Dolphins owner Stephen Ross and Fontainebleau owner Jeffrey Soffer, that focused on workers, hiring, the environment and social benefits.

The mayor then sent the deal to the county’s Airports and Economic Development Committee to expedite a 451-room hotel east of the Dolphin Garage sited where the once-planned Airport City was to rise.

The airports committee postponed a vote in May, with Chairman Keon Hardemon calling for future 15-minute presentations by both FDR and the team that the county’s selection committee ranked second, Parmco Airport Hospitality. He called the selection “one of the most peculiar processes I’ve ever seen.”

Much was made at last week’s meeting of the fact that the selection committee that had chosen FDR by a wide margin had never had a presentation by either developer.

Last week’s presentations featured video of the proposed hotel from two of Miami’s best-known architects, Arquitectonica founder Bernardo Fort-Brescia for FDR and Zyscovich founder Bernard Zyscovich for Parmco. Both were unfamiliar to some of the committee but have been involved in major projects here for 40 years.

Committee members hailed both presentations. Commissioner Marleine Bastien said that in future, county selection committees should be required to hear presentations from bidders.

But the six airport committee members also made clear that they were not making a choice. That choice had been made by the selection committee, the mayor had negotiated with the chosen firm to alter its offering, and the final product was being submitted for the committee’s recommendation of county commission confirmation or rejection, not to choose which firm should win the bid.

In a chamber filled with lobbyists, lawyers, and experts from both bidding teams, Commissioner Danielle Cohen Higgins, who eventually left the dais rather vote for motion that did not support the mayor’s choice of FDR, noted that pressures on how to vote had been frequent before the meeting.

“I’m sure,” she said to the other commissioners before the three rounds of voting, that “all of our phones have rung off the hook regarding this particular situation that we’re in.”