Rental Car Center Rising at MIC

$370 million structure will store, service cars and house 20 rental companies

By Debra Wood

Turner Construction Co. of Miami says it’s ahead of schedule building the $370 million, 3.4-million-sq-ft Rental Car Center near Miami International Airport, the first major component of the long-planned $1.7 billion Miami Intermodal Center.

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The MIC, which will ultimately serve as a multimodal connection point for all modes of ground transportation in the city, is designed to relieve traffic congestion near Miami International Airport.

At the rental car facility, Turner is following up on its completion in 2004 of approximately $60 million in foundation and utilities at the RCC/MIC site.

HNTB of Miami is providing construction engineering and inspection services for the owner, the Florida Department of Transportation. Earth Tech of Miami is serving as a consultant and providing preliminary design concepts. Sequeira & Gavarrete (Heery/S&G), a Heery International Co. firm in Coral Gables, is the architect of record for the rental car center.

“The rental car center is the first major element of the Miami Intermodal Center,” says Roberto Sequeira, principal in charge for Sequeira & Gavarrete. “Each floor is about 20 acres in area. It’s substantial floor plates.”

Turner began going vertical on the rental car center in July 2007. The center includes a 6,500-car, four-level parking deck, with operations areas for 16 rental car companies and a 130,000-sq-ft customer transaction lobby. The project was approximately 45% complete in June.

Albert Sosa, HNTB senior project manager, expected the structure to top out in September, with construction scheduled to wrap up in January 2010. The rental-car companies will have six months to build out and occupy their space.

“We are ahead of schedule, the project’s going great and there’s a lot of enthusiasm,” says Jim Fraser, vice president and general manager of Turner in Miami.

The structure employs a mix of cast-in-place concrete and precast double-T beams. Sequeira opted for 60 by 60-ft column spacing to provide a wide bay and give the rental car companies flexibility in configuring their space. Baker Concrete Construction of Medley, Fla., and Form Works of Fort Lauderdale are placing approximately 130,000 cu yds of concrete.

“We’re averaging [placing] more than 500 cu yds of concrete every day, with our peak amounts about 800 cu yds per day,” Sosa says.

Precast contractor Coreslab Structures of Miami will fabricate and erect more than 1 million sq ft of double-tee beams and 35,000 sq ft of architectural precast walls. Trainor Glass of Riviera Beach, Fla., will provide more than 50,000 sq ft of glass systems.

The glass, at each of the two major public ramps, helps camouflage the mammoth size of the building and will reflect the tropical landscape, Sequeira says. A louver system also helps to reduce the building’s scale by breaking the garage into smaller sections.

Heery/S&G provided transparency and translucency by incorporating metal screening devices. Steel mesh covering the egress stairs lining the perimeter employ a tensioning system. During the day, the mesh will appear as a shimmering solid, but at night it will look transparent and allow people to glimpse inside the facility.

Due to the rental car center’s proximity to the airport’s flight path, the team needed to secure permits from the Federal Aviation Administration to erect the cranes and must follow location restrictions.

The center will feature multilevel fueling and car-washing capabilities designed to facilitate quick turnaround of the vehicles. There are 120 fuel positions, 42 wash bays and space for oil changes.

“The system includes cast-in-place concrete chases that carry the fuel piping and contain any spills,” Sosa says.

Sequeira adds that systems will cut off fuel supplies in case of a spill, contain a small amount of fuel and detect and suppress fire if one were to occur. The cast-in-place, post-tensioned concrete slabs and pipe trenching have a four-hour floor-to-floor fire rating.

Heery/S&G, along with life-safety consultant Arup of New York, completed fire and explosion computer simulation as part of the design process.

The customer service area, on the fourth floor, has a 3D space frame under the roof, supported by cast-in-place concrete and steel columns.

Turner also is managing construction of the $40 million MIC/MIA station, which will connect to the rental car center and receive passengers arriving from the airport via a planned $342 million, 1.25-mi elevated automated people mover system, with the capability of moving more than 3,000 passengers per hour.

A contract with Parsons-Odebrecht Joint Venture, a partnership between Parsons Corp. of Pasadena, Calif., and Odebrecht USA of Coral Gables, Fla., for the MIC/MIA people mover system project is pending approval by the Miami-Dade Board of County Commissioners in July.

United Forming of Fort Lauderdale will place the concrete for the MIC/MIA station, including a 50-ft-high elevated platform.

Once the rental car companies move into the new center and vacate their existing space, those buildings will be demolished and construction can begin on the $60 million Miami Central Station, which will bring together into one location the airport people mover, light- and heavy-rail service, local and intercity bus service, taxis and shuttle operations, and bicycle and pedestrian facilities.

Other Development

Significant progress has taken place elsewhere on the construction of the $1.7 billion MIC.

Traffic near MIA is flowing more smoothly with the May completion of the $194 million Miami Intermodal Center Le Jeune Roadways Program. Kiewit Southern Co. of Miami completed the $80 million construction of a totally re-engineered Le Jeune Road, which separates local from airport traffic and prevents flooding; a new NW 21st Street bridge and interchange; and 11 bridges and ramps connecting State Route 112 and SR 836 for FDOT.

“With the completion of this roadway system and the MIC/MIA interchange, Florida Department of Transportation is now far along in achieving our two main objectives,” Gary Donn, MIC program manager for FDOT, says in a written response to questions. “First, we are providing real transportation systems, connectivity, where none existed before. This is for Miami-Dade County residents and visitors and travelers. Second, we are decongesting area roadways leading to and from Miami International Airport.”

County commissioners first approved the concept for the intermodal center in 1989. During the ensuing years, FDOT has shepherded it through design, permitting and construction.

Useful Sources:
Miami Intermodal Center
http://www.micdot.com/

MIC RCC Project Team:
Owner: Florida Department of Transportation
Consultant and Preliminary Design: Earth Tech, Miami
Architect: Sequeira & Gavarrete, a Heery International Company, Coral Gables
CEI: HNTB, Miami
Construction Manager: Turner Construction Co., Miami