Faster and Busier

Two Miami condo contractors make most of latest building boom

By Scott Judy

It is perhaps a sign of the times that in this latest - and perhaps greatest - construction boom in Miami, contractors are building condominium projects they didn't pursue in the first place.

So predominant are these developments that most condo contractors are as busy as they'd like to be, and it's the owners that are chasing the builders, instead of the other way around.

Miami has officially gone condo crazy. And if there was ever any doubt about it, this South Florida city has become the national epicenter for multifamily construction, a market that is hot all around the country. In 2004, for example, McGraw-Hill Construction's Analytics Group reported that the overall value of new apartment/condo contracts - already prevalent in Miami - jumped by an incredible 46 percent to total nearly $1.1 billion.

Now those contracts are popping out of the ground and quickly climbing to new heights.

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Two contractors making the most of this condo craze are John Moriarty & Associates of Hollywood and Soares Da Costa CS of Boca Raton. While John Moriarty appears to be the busiest condo contractor in the area, relative newcomer Soares Da Costa is already claiming to be the fastest, driving its $66 million, 37-story Blue condo to completion within 19 months - four months ahead of schedule.

Busy

John Moriarty & Associates is arguably the No. 1 contractor for Miami's top condo developer, The Related Group. Moriarty, a firm based in Massachusetts, is working on five Related projects currently - ICON in Miami Beach, the Beach Club I, II and III contracts in Hallandale Beach and the twin 40-plus-story towers of One Miami in downtown Miami. Cumulatively, the value of these contracts is in the area of $500 million.

James Palermo, Moriarty's senior vice president, said his company is working primarily for Related, "and it's only a drop in the bucket of Related's overall workload. They have more work than we could possibly handle."

Indeed, the list of Related's current or upcoming projects is a long one. In addition to the ones John Moriarty & Associates is working on, a partial list includes: AquAzul, Las Olas Beach Club, Murano Grande, Ocean Four, The Plaza on Brickell, Aventura Marina, The Prado, The Slade, 500 Brickell Avenue and Apogee.

Palermo said that, given his company's already strong workload at the time Related approached him about the $122 million One Miami contract, it "was really something we didn't think we could handle at the time. But they convinced us we were the right people for the job."

William Bahder, Moriarty's senior project manager on One Miami, agreed.

"But our arm kept getting twisted and finally we gave in," he added. "Because of our reputation and our relationship with Related - that we build faster than anybody else - we were very nervous about how this was going to transpire."

The cause for concern was obvious. The task: build a pair of towers, one 42 stories and the other 43, on an extremely tight site on the edge of downtown and Biscayne Bay, resulting in approximately 900 completely finished luxury condominium units, retail, restaurant and office space. The schedule: 24 months from the December 2003 start date until completion, and 19 months to earn a certificate of occupancy for the first 20 floors of each tower.

"The issue here wasn't that we were doing anything new," Bahder said. "The issue is we were building much more volume in a much more confined space than we ever have."

With the target for those first TCOs in July, Bahder was pushing to make it happen.

"Here, we're going to turn a project - the largest that we've done in South Florida - in the same time frame that we did (other projects) that had a third of the units," he said in the spring. "It's interesting to me that it could be done.

"I don't care if the project has 270 units or 900, our goal is always to get a certificate of occupancy 18 months after we break ground. And we're going to be very, very close here."

Moriarty didn't put together an all-star team to build this project, but rather a mix of workers, many of them young and new to the company. Bahder said that, for instance, only three of the contractor's roughly 20 workers on One Miami had worked on another Moriarty project before this one.

The tight site and the two towers required some tricky coordination and planning. As the towers went up, the contractor was using as many as four tower cranes to make it all happen. The company actually phased the parking garage structure ahead of the towers so it could use that building for material laydown.

As the towers emerged, the eastern-most structure progressed roughly four floors ahead of the other. Concrete contractor Southland Forming of Royal Palm Beach worked from one tower to the other.

Moriarty also spent $300,000 to build a platform to work from on another end, one that was tall enough to allow materials delivery underneath. Bahder said his younger staffers did a great job managing the massive amount of materials deliveries.

"The kids really shined there," he said. "We poured over 2,000 yds. of concrete a week. I would say on an average week, when the concrete was really flowing, in addition to 200 concrete trucks there were probably 200 more trucks coming in here - 400 trucks in a five-day period, generally. That in itself amazes me."

The management of this materials delivery is reflected in another fact - drywall work lagged behind the shell completion by only two floors.

"So the flow of the materials and all of the trades had to be here while we were still building the shell," Bahder said. "We're done with it now, and I don't know how we did it."

Fast

Prior to the award of its Blue project, Soares Da Costa wasn't as well known in the Miami condo market as John Moriarty & Associates. The contractor got a little lucky when the 37-story, $66 million Blue project for Hyperion Development "just fell into our laps," said Kurt Kenyon, senior project manager for the contractor.

Kenyon and company vice president of operations Ronnie Forsythe said other contractors declined to take on the project due to a unique owner/subcontractor situation.

One of the partners of the owner, Hyperion Development - which is headed up by Netscape co-founder Jim Clark and a partner of his - was Paul Murphy, an owner of a concrete subcontracting firm that was going to help build the project.

"The deal's kind of unique," Forsythe said. "One of the owners with Hyperion, Paul Murphy, is one of our subcontractors."

Forsythe said Murphy owns Cashman Construction of Boca Raton and was helping finance JAM Shell Builders of Miami. Cashman and JAM worked as a team to build Blue's concrete shell.

"The other (contractors) were not willing to deal with that side of it," Forsythe said. "We had never dealt with it. When you've got an owner who's your sub, it's different. But we were willing to work as a team, and that's how we went about it."

Kenyon added: "The understanding (was) the owner is bringing this contractor onboard and that we're all going to support him and get the job done.

"This is the biggest job JAM has ever done, and they've done just a fabulous job. We were turning one whole level every four days." Each floor measured approximately 14,000 sq. ft., with the curving layout - courtesy of Miami-based Arquitectonica - split up into two equal pours.

Soares Da Costa could have faced significant delays due to the concrete shortage that impacted the market in 2004. Fortunately, the contractor had tied in its ready-mixed supplier, Continental, early on in the project with a significant down-payment on the concrete material, a commitment to pay timely thereafter and the potential promise of the ability to work on the just-starting $125 million Marina Blue condo.

Partially as a result of that upfront planning, Kenyon added, "We're anticipating completing four months early, by July 1."

Booming

Both John Moriarty and Soares Da Costa appear to place an emphasis on teamwork and listening to their subcontractors. Both firms also have committed to paying on a timely basis while at the same time offering prospects for future work.

Moriarty's Palermo said he takes pride in the company's efforts to build loyalty with its subcontractors.

"We feel we have put together the best subcontractor corps in South Florida and we have first preference of their services," he added. "If there's any other general contractor on the street soliciting them to do work, and if they have only one job they can do, it'll be ours.

"We come up a little bit faster than everyone else, so that means they're in a position to make the money on the job that they're supposed to make."

Soares Da Costa is still developing its owner allegiances, but the results of Blue are apparently paying dividends.

"Now we have people knocking on our door," Forsythe said. "This (Blue) project has opened a lot of doors and a lot of eyes."

As busy as these two firms - and numerous others - have been lately, Palermo said it's possible the market will continue to expand.

"What I've heard from the bankers, the developers, the people who study the demographics is that the market hasn't peaked and won't peak until '07," he added. "That's almost mind-boggling. I believe there's 28,000 units planned or under construction - which is just an incredible amount of volume and product to be putting out on the marketplace, but yet the demographics seem to support it that these units will sell."