Boulevard Business Owners Seek Practical Solutions
The controversy over the North Roosevelt Boulevard reconstruction project keeps heating up. How the project should be conducted so as to limit impact on adjacent businesses has become a central question and some people who earn their living on the Boulevard have come up with an unexpected idea. They want to hire their own expert traffic engineer and propose their own traffic maintenance plan.
“This project is only half way through. We should be constructive,” says Tim Gratz of Dominoes’ Pizza, “and make sure the second half of the project is going to include solutions to our problems.”
The consensus among business owners includes three priorities: 1) The work should be done in sections 2) Functional two-way traffic should be established and 3) More workers and more work hours.
“I cannot believe,” says John Key, President of Napa Auto Parts, “that deMoya gutted three miles of Boulevard. We haven’t seen anyone working past Kennedy Drive, month after month.”
“Right now there are more people working at Dominoe’s Pizza than on the Boulevard,” says Gratz.
Apparently those “solutions” are in fact requirements that are clearly spelled out in the contract.
“The intention of this contract is to maintain two-way traffic on Roosevelt Boulevard north of First St/Palm Avenue for the maximum duration possible,” wrote FDOT to deMoya during bid negotiations.
There are similar provisions requiring adequate personnel and prohibiting the closing off of sections until work on the prior section has been accomplished.
So things should be pretty simple. You would think that FDOT and its contractor deMoya would agree to not begin excavating the business side of the Boulevard before they‘ve made the waterfront side completely useable again and that they would work only one section at a time on the business side.
Unfortunately, FDOT seems to have taken an opposite position. At a City Commission meeting on Tuesday, FDOT spokesman Dean Walters declared it a “fiction” that “business traffic would improve so much if it were one lane in each direction”. He also denied that two-way traffic was required under the contract because everyone, including the City, had agreed to a plan that disregarded that contract clause. Charlie Phinizy the FDOT Project Manager argued, in response to Commissioner Tony Yaniz’ query about the possibility of speeding things up now, that working more hours with a larger crew would cost too much and that working in sections would cost more money for mobilization. So, apparently, FDOT is not poised to agree with business owners.
The “cost” issue is worth mentioning. DeMoya has already pocketed a flat fee of $4 Million just for “mobilization” purposes. Could it be that that enormous amount of money was not just meant to cover the costs of coming here from Miami? Might it have been meant to include the costs to mobilize and demobilize certain teams and subcontractors between jobs; something that would have been required in order to conduct the work in sections?
The costs of facilitating continued two-way traffic is also interesting. By the end of the project DeMoya will have received another flat fee of $4.3 Million for ‘maintenance of traffic’. “Maintenance of traffic” we are told can be very involving: 24 hour flagmen, constant relocation of traffic signals, reorganizing detours, etc.
By comparison, for $4.3 Million deMoya has conducted relatively few traffic maintenance maneuvers and has simply shut down out bound traffic entirely; basically letting everyone fend for themselves. Another bidder on the project, General Asphalt Co., had priced ‘maintenance of traffic’ for this project at only $2 Million. Couldn’t some of that $4.3 Million be used to implement a two-way traffic scheme for the remainder of the project?
Dean Walters told Commissioners that implementing two-way traffic would create grid-lock “much like Big Pine before adding a turn lane.”
“But that’s what we’re talking about,” says Gratz, “what we need is a third lane. Maybe that’s where we need our own engineer, but it seems to me there is plenty enough room for a turn lane; especially in areas where no work is occurring.”
We have previously reported that the original FDOT estimate was $21 Million. Under their own regulations FDOT should reject bids that are 10% over the FDOT estimated cost. [Have a look at page 2 of the FDOT Solicitation Bid Notice under Bid Rejection.] Instead, FDOT has agreed to pay deMoya $41.5 Million – that number approaches 100% over the original estimated cost. [The official FDOT estimate was bumped up to $25.7 Million prior to being put out for bids which brings the figure to 61.5% over the official estimate.]
At this point it seems clear that the contractor intends to work this entire job with between 6 and 12 people working 4 days a week. If they do make it on time, that would be all the proof even the least suspicious among us would need to believe that FDOT is paying way too much.
It looks like there could be some light at the end of this tunnel were all parties to come to the table and were deMoya to agree to spend a little bit more of that $41 Million.