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The decision to accept Portman’s first proposal can still benefit the city, Dougherty said Wednesday. The original proposal calls for Portman to pay for rebuilding the 17th Street Garage at a cost of $17.4 million to the team.
“We will be asking the city to please take that into consideration in their analysis,” said Dougherty.
The financial projections are important as commissioners move closer to picking a team for the project, which includes a renovation of the city’s convention center, an 800-room hotel, new public parks, retail development and possibly housing. The 52-acre site in South Beach is public land, which the city proposes to lease to one of the development teams to help pay for the public portions of the project.
Meanwhile, the city is still working to get South Beach ACE to sign an agreement not to sue Miami Beach. The city’s legal department asked the two teams on July 3 to sign an agreement saying they wouldn’t sue if they weren’t chosen for the deal.
Portman-CMC signed the agreement — contingent on South Beach ACE doing the same. ACE has refused to sign the agreement, which commissioners took issue with publicly at a committee meeting Monday night.
“I don’t think we should select one before they both sign the waivers,’’ said Commissioner Michael Góngora.
ACE made the decision not to sign the agreement before it had learned of the revised financials from Portman.
“Had we agreed to sign that document on that day we would have been precluded from raising the impropriety in the manner in which we’re doing now or in any other form that would have been appropriate,” Dotson said.
Dotson has said that the agreement offered by the city is “overly broad” and suggested it could be illegal.
City Attorney Jose Smith said that’s “totally incorrect” and a “red herring.”
Chief Deputy City Attorney Raul Aguila said the city could work out new language to allay Dotson’s concerns, but that hasn’t happened so far.
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