Debut Time for the PAC

Carnival Center for the Performing Arts set for first performance in October.

By Debra Wood

Two extra years in the making and well over its original budget, Miami-Dade County's sparkling new Carnival Center for the Performing Arts is finally ready for its first curtain call.

Despite all of the problems, Bill Johnson, director for the Port of Miami and former Miami-Dade assistant county manager in charge of the $461 million center, called the project a success. "Mission accomplished," he added. "Now, it's up to the audience."

More than 5,300 construction workers worked on the performing arts center, Johnson said. Architect Cesar Pelli's design concept included dual modern buildings - designed to capture the essence of the city's multiethnic heritage - straddling Biscayne Boulevard and connected by a bridge. The design also incorporates an outdoor plaza that retains a nod to the past with the inclusion of a1929 Art Deco tower.

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The venues include the 2,400-seat Sanford and Dolores Ziff Ballet Opera House, the 2,200-seat John S. and James L. Knight Concert Hall and a studio theater.

"I'm really delighted to see the building being completed," said Pelli, principal with Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects of New Haven, Conn., which received the architecture contract in 1996 after an international design competition. "It looks stupendous. All the sweat and tears through the years seems to have been very much worthwhile."

The exterior walls of the four- and five-story buildings contain a variety of stone from Italy and Brazil, as well as Roman travertine, "Miami white" painted metal, brushed stainless steel and a glass curtain wall. The granite carries into the interiors, with honed capao bonito granite from Brazil on the donor wall of the concert hall and honed Verde fountain from South Africa on the donor wall of the ballet-opera house.

The design team included acoustician Russell Johnson of ARTEC Consultants of New York and theater planning and design consultant Joshua Dachs of Fisher Dachs Associates of New York.

"The inner workings of the hall will set these two structures apart from anything in the country or the world," Johnson said.

Performing Arts Center Builders, a joint venture of Odebrecht Construction of Coral Gables, Fla.; , The Haskell Co. of Jacksonville, Fla.; and EllisDon Corp. of Ontario, Canada, broke ground in 2001. The two heavy structural-steel buildings have entrances on all sides and feature no right angles, said Ron Austin, director of construction for Miami-Dade County, who was hired by PACB in 2003 as a consultant and later retained by the county. He had worked on prior Pelli-designed arts centers and had assisted PACB with its bid.
A Litigious Start

By 2003, with the project 30 percent complete, Pelli and PACB had essentially stopped talking to each other, Austin and Johnson said. More time was spent documenting problems than moving forward as the project fell 600 days behind schedule, generated more than $100 million in claims and lost citizen support, Austin said.

At about the same time, Miami-Dade County, owner of the center, brought in Johnson to try to get the project back on track, Austin said. Johnson had experience with other major county construction projects.

"What we were facing in the summer of 2004 was a project that was paralyzed," Johnson said. "We needed to change that paradigm and get everyone aligned together and communicating with each other."

Johnson hired URS to provide an assessment and give recommendations for how to resolve the situation. He said he enlisted the support of County Manager George M. Burgess and asked the board of county commissioners for $67.7 million to settle 12 major claims and to restructure the agreement with the contractor from a construction manager at risk to an agency CM, where the county would assume responsibility and liability. The plan, Johnson said, instilled confidence and trust in the owner.

Principals and legal teams met with county representatives for 44 days to hammer out settlement agreements, Austin said. The commissioners approved the deals, and everything started new, with a revised completion date of Aug. 4, 2006, Austin said. After that date, the county would cease paying construction, architecture or subconsultant fees.

"Everyone was married at the hip, financially," Austin added. "We will get done or else there is no compensation."

Steven Halverson, Haskell president, told Engineering News-Record at the time: "It was a pretty exceptional reinvention that had an immense positive psychology on everyone."

GBBN Architects of Cincinnati came on board to work under Pelli as a construction document/developer specialist and assist with resolving in-the-field design conflicts, Austin said.

Dazzling Details

That's all history now.

"The quality of workmanship is excellent," Johnson said. "The look is stunning."

Miami-Dade County's Art in Public Places program commissioned artists to create pieces that would become integral to the center. Cuban artist Jose Bedia designed a poured epoxy terrazzo floor mural, with zinc and brass strips, that depicts an outstretched black hand in a golden background at the ballet opera house and a light-colored hand in the dark floor across the street at the concert hall.

The hands serve as a metaphor for applause and become a unifying symbol, welcoming the public into the venues.

As part of the same public art program, Cundo Bermudes created a 40- by 27-ft. glass mosaic mural, fabricated and installed by Bisazza, Italian/International of Miami. And Bedia designed sandblasted laminated glass balcony rails, fabricated and installed by Architectural Glass Art in Louisville.

The concert hall features a maple wood, fabric wall coverings and custom light fixtures and wooded floors. Pelli picked cherry wood and custom fabrics for the ballet-opera house.

In order to maintain consistency in quality and blending of the wood in both buildings, the custom wood fabricator, Fetzer from Salt Lake City; the theater seat manufacturer, Series USA from Florida and Columbia; and the different door manufacturers all agreed to use the same veneer supplier, Bacon Veneer in Grundy Center, Iowa, said Roberto Espejo, a senior associate with Pelli.

He added that architects from his firm went through more than 500,000 sq. ft. of veneer flitches to hand select the 60,000 sq. ft. necessary for the job.

Crews from Miami-based Lotspeich Co. of Florida applied 70 tons of plaster by hand to the ceiling of the ballet-opera house, which contributes to optimal acoustics, Austin said. Each 2-in.-thick section required five passes of plaster with mesh between.

To create the illusion of thousands of different points of lights in the concert hall, Pelli set custom cast glass fixtures between the continuous air-supply diffusers in the ceiling and clusters of small lights into the 2-in. horizontal slots of wood in the balcony fronts, Espejo said.

Also in the concert hall, three horseshoe-shaped objects hang above the stage, enabling the musicians to hear themselves play. The canopy can be lowered to within 6-in of the stage to hang lights on it, Austin said.

On the walls of the concert hall, reverberation doors move to tailor sound depending on the performance. Behind the doors is a concrete reverberation chamber as tall as the hall, 70-ft., Austin said.

At one point Pelli had 20 full-time staff working on the project, plus people from its support teams GBBN Architects and mechanical engineer Cosentini Associates of New York, all to ensure the work progressed as designed.

At the end of July, the project had no pending litigation, and the center received a certificate of occupancy on Aug. 4, Johnson said.

Carnival Corp. of Miami contributed $20 million for naming rights, and the Knight Foundation of Miami donated $10 million in grants to name the concert hall. The two gifts brought the total raised by the Miami Performing Arts Center Foundation to $80 million, just $5 million shy of its goal.

"These will be two absolutely great theaters that will compare with any concert hall or opera house in the world," Pelli said. Residential condominiums, retail and restaurants are locating near the center, according to Pelli and the Miami Downtown Development Authority. Austin said more than $4 billion in real estate transactions near the center have occurred since construction started.

USEFUL SOURCES:

Carnival Center for the Performing Arts
www.miamipac.org/

Team Box:

Owner: Miami-Dade County
Contractor: Performing Arts Center Builders, a joint venture of Odebrecht Construction, Coral Gables, Fla.; The Haskell Co., Jacksonville, Fla.; and EllisDon, Ontario, Canada.
Architect:Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects, New Haven, Conn.
Mechanical Engineer: Cosentini Associates, New York
Acoustical Engineer: ARTEC Consultants, New York
Theater Planning, Design and Lighting Consultant: Fisher Dachs Associates, New York
Structural Steel Erector: ADF International, Terrebonne, Quebec, Canada.
Concrete and Rebar Installers: P&H Concrete and Melo Concrete, Miami
Curtain Wall Fabricator: Baker Metals, Dallas
Curtain Wall Installer: Enclos, Eagan, Minn.
Interior and exterior stones: Savema in Forte di Marmi, Italy
Interior and exterior stone installation: Savema in Forte di Marmi partner Titan Stone, Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Epoxy terrazzo lobby floors fabrication and installation: Architectural Glass Art, Louisville
Lighting/electrical: Regency Electric Co., Jacksonville, Fla.
Electrical Supplier: Lighting and Power, New Jersey
Theater equipment and rigging: Gala, Montreal, Canada, and JR Clancy, Syracuse, N.Y.
Millwork: Fetzer, Salt Lake City
Plaster: Lotspeich Co. of Florida, Miami