Hilton Hotels Corp., Apollo Real Estate Advisors and Rida Development Corp. announced the groundbreaking of the 1400-room Hilton Orlando Convention Center, located south of the Orange County Convention Center. Hilton Hotels will manage the hotel with a minority ownership interest, while Apollo Real Estate Investment Fund V and Rida Development Corp. will have majority ownership.

The 18-story hotel, which sits on 26.4 acres, is currently scheduled to open in the summer of 2009.

The hotel will provide direct access to the convention center’s south Concourse through a pedestrian sky bridge. Also, it will include more than 130,000 sq ft of meeting space, a 15,000-sq-ft spa and other amenities.

Tampa Bay Is Ready To Test If Fixed Plant Is Worth Its Salt

Three years after starting remediation of its troubled seawater desalination plant in Apollo Beach, Fla., Tampa Bay Water announced that the facility had finally become operational in April, and is now progressing toward the start of acceptance testing in June. The 25-million-gallon-per-day facility is the nation’s largest reverse-osmosis seawater desalination plant, and has long been seen nationally as a bellwether for the viability of future similar projects.

“We’re anxious to see the plant go through the acceptance testing process and transition to O&M (operations and maintenance),” says Ken Herd, director of operations and facilities for Tampa Bay Water. “We really want to see the plant put through its paces to ensure that all of the issues regarding this plant have been properly addressed.”

The April start of operations is actually a four-month delay to the date the contractor had been anticipating as recently as fall of 2006, when it expected a December timeframe.

The contractor, a joint venture of American Water and Pridesa America Corp., has since filed for 45 days of delay claims, but “We haven’t agreed to any of that,” Herd says. He adds that the agency had approved roughly two weeks of delay claims related to a brief interruption of water supply and a leak in one of the pipelines.

The plant became operational on April 4 upon certification by the Florida Dept. of Environmental Protection. In early May, the plant was still only producing between 10-15 mgd, Herd says. To proceed with the planned June 11 start of acceptance testing, the contractor must have the facility running at its 25-mgd capacity by late May, in order to meet a prerequisite of 16 days of continuous operation before acceptance can begin. Herd says the contractor also has tweaked some of the filtration systems in the last few months, “sort of adding belts and suspenders” to the plant to ensure it passes its upcoming acceptance testing.

This most recent schedule extension is merely the latest. Construction of the facility started in 1999 under a $110 million contract with a group led by Stone & Webster of Boston. After that firm went bankrupt just a year later and technical difficulties followed, the agency hired another contractor, Covanta, which then also filed for bankruptcy shortly after experiencing its own set of performance problems.

In 2004, Tampa Bay Water signed a $31.6 million contract with American Water and Pridesa America Corp. to remediate the troubled plant, whose initial filter systems were clogging much more frequently than expected. The American Water-Pridesa team reworked much of the existing facility and added other processes to enhance pretreatment, as well as to provide greater operational flexibility and automation. The installation of 18 precoat diatomaceous earth filters was a highlight of the remediation, as was a major retooling of the existing sand filter process and notable enhancements to the cartridge filtration and reverse osmosis processes.

The owner’s final cost has since been pegged at about $158 million. Tampa Bay Water also announced it had agreed to a $7.9 million settlement with the original membrane manufacturer, Long Beach, Calif.-based Hydranautics Inc., that had guaranteed the plant’s performance early on, and its co-sureties.

Despite the significant delays and problems, a growing number of those in the water-supply business now considering desalination technology are still following the Tampa project’s project closely.

“Tampa is a very important project,” says Bob Yamada, water resources manager with the San Diego County Water Authority and past president of the American Membrane Technology Association industry group. “It needs to be successful, because it’s really leading the way for other projects, such as in California, Texas and Florida.” He adds that the San Diego region, for example, is “counting on” desalinated seawater to become an element of the area’s water supply over the next 10-15 years.

Yamada has followed the project since its inception, he says, and says the plant’s delays were related mostly to project delivery. “The technology was not the problem; it was the execution that was the problem.”

Basically, he adds, “Owners need to be careful that we don’t overemphasize price. An overemphasis on price can lead to poor choices in the procurement process – poor contractor choices and poor choices as far as the technology to be used.”

Herd agrees that that is one of the lessons learned.

“Through privation of water supply, we can pass on financial risk to contractors, but we can’t pass on the obligation to meet the drinking water supply needs to a private contractor,” he says. “We’re best positioned to take on that risk, which means we need to be in a position where we can control, monitor and feel comfortable with the processes that are being developed that will eventually be part of our system. Because we ultimately bear the responsibility of meeting the water-supply needs of this community.”

A Disastrous April for Residential

Despite upturns in the nonresidential and nonbuilding sectors, a continuing, drastic drop in residential construction activity is keeping Florida’s total construction numbers well behind past last year’s pace, McGraw-Hill Construction reported. Despite the growth in the other sectors, the residential market dragged the overall value of all Florida contracts signed in April for future construction to 38% below the same period of a year ago. For the month, the total value of new contracts totaled roughly $4.1 billion, down from the $6.6 billion reported a year ago.

Residential was the only declining sector, turning down by 59% to tally just $1.9 billion, compared to last April’s $4.7 billion. The nonresidential category was 3% ahead of last April, with a total of about $1.2 billion. The nonbuilding segment jumped by 32% to total about $947 million for the month, compared to the $719.1 million of a year ago.

The April figures brought Florida contract activity for the year-to-date to nearly $16 billion, or 34% below the first four months of 2006. Nonresidential, at about $4.9 billion, is 11% ahead of 2006’s pace, while nonbuilding construction totals about $2.8 billion, or 38% ahead of last year. The residential market, estimated at about $8.2 billion, is 53% behind last year’s pace of about $17.7 billion.

Joint Venture Awarded $250M Eglin Air Force Base Contract

A joint venture between Dick Corp. and Hunt Development Group of El Paso, Texas, known as Eglin Properties LLC, announced it has been awarded a $250 million contract by the Department of Air Force. The contract is for the design, development, financing and construction of the Emerald Coast Technology and Research Center at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida.

The project involves the ground lease of approximately 98 acres of land adjacent to the Eglin West Main Gate. Anchored by the University of Florida’s Research Education & Engineering Facility, the proposed development will include approximately 1.1 million sq ft of class A office, technology and research space supported by an education cluster of undergraduate- and graduate-level research and training complimented by student housing and other amenities.

The Landings Real Estate Group is providing development and management services, Greenhorne & O’Mara and Bullock Tice Associates are providing design services.

Tampa Bay Water Expands New Plant

Tampa Bay Water has taken another step toward meeting the region’s needs for clean drinking water by awarding a $158.4-million contract to Veolia Water North America-South to design, build and operate a 48-million-gallon-per-day expansion of an existing water-treatment plant in Brandon, Fla. The Houston-based firm had recently completed a DBO contract to build the existing 72-mgd Regional Surface Water Treatment Plant and will work with design engineer CDM of Cambridge, Mass., to expand the current facility to a total capacity of 120 mgd.

According to Tampa Bay Water, that would make the Brandon plant the largest water-treatment plant in the nation to be delivered under a DBO contract. The expansion is scheduled to be finished by 2010

ZOM, Pelloni to Develop The Hudson

Orlando-based ZOM and Pelloni Development Corp. announced they have joined forces to develop The Hudson, the residential component of Mills Park, Pelloni Development’s $350 million, 14.5-acre mixed-use development near Orlando.

Mills Park will blend office, retail, residential and cultural components and, when completed, will consist of two parking structures and six mid-rise buildings, including 78,000 sq ft of retail space, along with 273,000 sq ft of general and medical office condominium space.

The Hudson at Mills Park will be ZOM’s third condominium project in Orlando.

FDOT Hires Earth Tech for MIC Central Station Design

Earth Tech announced that the Florida Department of Transportation has awarded the company a $3 million, 15-month contract to plan, design and prepare construction documents for the first phase of the Central Station at the Miami Intermodal Center. 

The Central Station, which is part of the MIC core project, features an elevated pedestrian concourse that links travelers to a ground transportation center, where they can access intercity bus operations and taxi and private vehicle drop-off and pick-up areas. The station will also connect to a Metro Rail station; an airport automated people mover, and the consolidated rental car center lobby.

Roepnack Starts on $27M Lenox at Forest Lake

Roepnack Corp. of Pompano Beach has begun construction on the The Lenox at Forest Lake, a $27 million luxury assisted-living community in Lauderhill.  The facility will include 124 assisted-living units and 34 apartments dedicated to individuals with memory loss diseases. Construction is slated to be completed by spring 2008.

MMR Associates, of New York and Miami, is the project developer. Goldenholz and Associates Architects and Planners is the project designer.

Construct Two Group Wins $18M Orange County School Project

Construction Two Group of Orlando has been awarded an $18.2 million contract to build the Lake Whitney/Thornebrooke Relief Elementary School for Orange County Public Schools.

Located in west Orange County, the two-story building will be approximately 96,927 sq ft and will include classrooms, art and music rooms and several outdoor activity areas. The project has an anticipated completion date of May 2008.

FAU Constructs Student Union at Davie Campus

Florida Atlantic University currently is constructing the latest addition to its Davie campus, a student union.

The $6 million, 20,000-sq-ft student union will consist of a multi-story facility located at the northwest end of the existing liberal arts building and will include offices for student government and campus organizations, a multipurpose area and student lounge, a bookstore, food service for students, as well as a health auxiliary and business support services area.

The new student union also will house a student health center. Adjacent to the building will be an outdoor area for students to use for assemblies, concerts and social interaction.

The building is scheduled for completion in the spring.  

Gates Breaks Ground on Interpretative Center

Gates (formerly Gates McVey) announced it has broken ground on the Interpretive Center at The Six Mile Cypress Slough Preserve. According to Gates, the building will be the first LEED-certified project in Lee County.

The two-story, 12,000 sq-ft Interpretive Center will be situated within the Six Mile Cypress Slough Preserve, which is located along Six Mile Cypress Parkway in Fort Myers. The Interpretive Center will feature educational displays and explain the details of green building.  Other features include indoor meeting space, an office for the parks and recreation department, an outdoor teaching pavilion and a book store.

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