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A recent editorial by the Miami Herald commemorated the one-year anniversary of the opening of the PortMiami Tunnel by highlighting the impact that this remarkable project has already made.
The editorial reads:
. . . it has been largely smooth sailing for the $643-million tunnel, which came in $90 million under budget — a feat unheard of for such massive projects. “We did it without the drama,” Christopher Hodgkins, CEO of Miami Access Tunnel, told the Editorial Board on Monday.
Built through an innovative public/private partnership, the tunnel is operated and maintained by Miami Access Tunnel, which also built the facility through a contractor, the French firm Bouygues — all with the help of a German-built tunnel boring machine.
In its first year, the tunnel has diverted 80 percent of the street-clogging cargo trucks headed for the port away from downtown Miami. Thousands of cruise-ship passengers have done the same. Now passengers landing at Miami International Airport don’t even have to get on Biscayne Boulevard. They can travel on state roads 836 or 112 and connect to I-395 east to the tunnel, which spills out at the port.
“The tunnel has been a great success,” Mr. Hodgkins said. “We have changed the quality of life in downtown Miami.”
Mr. Hodgkins is absolutely correct, as more than 14,000 vehicles are now using the tunnel every day and bypassing the city’s downtown streets. He is also right about the fact the builder was able to avoid “the drama” that typically accompanies construction projects of such a massive scale, and I was pleased to have helped tunnel builder Bouygues Civil Works Florida to do so when it encountered unexpected site conditions that required additional work and funds to overcome. The issue could have created a lengthy impasse during construction, and my work as the lead legal counsel for the builder helped the company to secure a $58.5 million settlement that was the subject of a front-page article in the February 5, 2013 edition of the Daily Business Review titled “Dispute Resolution Board Reaches Rapid Settlement with PortMiami Tunnel Builder.” The article read:
Imagine securing a $58.5 million settlement from a dispute panel that bans lawyers from the room.
That’s the scenario Coral Gables attorney Stuart Sobel faced while representing Bouygues Civil Works Florida Inc., which is constructing the $1 billion tunnel that will connect PortMiami to I-395.
It didn’t surprise Sobel — he helped set up the tunnel’s Technical Dispute Resolution Board when his client won the project.
The report chronicled how I devoted many hours to preparing for the hearings on liability before the Technical Dispute Resolution Board outside of normal schedules. “My work was at night, trying to anticipate the issues that were going to be discussed the next day,” I was quoted in the article, which continued to read:
For the board presentation, Sobel put together PowerPoint presentations for his witnesses to use and coached them on how to answer the panel’s anticipated questions. The board heard evidence for 13 days before making its decision largely in favor of Bouygues.
The article explained that the tunnel dispute was over extra work for grouting the limestone as the company dug. “We determined there was a changed condition. The geologic conditions were different than what we’d been led to expect,” I noted.
I was also quoted discussing the merits of using Technical Dispute Resolution Boards for major construction projects. “The concept is you have construction people dealing with construction problems,” I concluded.
I am very proud of our firm’s work in enabling the tunnel builder to quickly and fairly resolve this matter and avoid any delays during construction. The award-winning tunnel is emblematic of the potential for public/private partnerships, which are expected to continue growing as the predominant paradigm for such large scale infrastructure projects in the years to come.