Gov. Charlie Crist has been asked by Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Alvarez and Miami Mayor Manny Diaz to reconsider the Florida Department of Transportation’s decision not to close the deal on the $1.2 billion Port of Miami Tunnel project.
“Our failure to invest in our port will place us at a competitive disadvantage,” Diaz said at a joint press conference with Alvarez Tuesday. “This is an investment in our city’s future, bringing jobs, economic prosperity, environmental sustainability, and maintaining our global competitiveness.”
FDOT last Friday announced that it would not close the public-private partnership between the department, the city, the county, and Miami Access Tunnel, a private consortium, because “our private partners have been overwhelmed by the effects of the financial market, making delivery unworkable.”
Both mayors and MAT wrote to Crist asking for a review of FDOT’s decision.
In a letter to Crist, MAT’s major partners — Babcock & Brown Infrastructure Group US LLC, the main equity partner, and French construction company Bouygues Travaux Publics SA — took exception with the decision and said equity funding is in place despite difficulties being experienced by Babcock. MAT said the decision to ax the project was “based upon incorrect facts, devalues the investment that all parties have made in these long negotiations, and, most importantly, represents arbitrary agency action.”
FDOT spokesman Dick Kane said Tuesday that while the letters were being reviewed, the department’s decision to cancel the project was unchanged.
