Follow the Yellow Brick Road... by gimleteye

The Miami Today reports a Hialeah company, Community Asphalt Corp., “is offering the state a $140 million buy-now, pay-later deal to finish rebuilding an 18 Mile Stretch of US 1 between Florida City and the Jewfish Creek Bridge in the upper Florida Keys.”

We wonder who benefits when a private contractor finances the state at a very substantial cost. And it doesn't take us long to figure out.

FDOT District 6 Secretary Johnny Martinez says, “The contractor is figuring he can build it cheaper now, than he could in 2012, but regardless of what he spends today, he wants us to pay him the amount we estimate it will cost us to build the road five years from now.” Um, well not exactly.

Believe that, we have a bridge in Brooklyn we would like to sell you.

No, there is something else rushing this little project along. It's a regular mystery.

Community Asphalt needs the work, now? Perhaps.

“If we accept this idea, the entire project gets done at least five years ahead of schedule without having to pay any money now… But the real benefit is for motorists and residents. Competing this project early will save at least 11 lives every year.”

Well, in addition to saving 11 lives a year, who else needs US 1 widened in the next five years?

How about the little $1 billion dollar development project that is in the groaning stages of planning with the State of Florida, right at the intersection of US 1 and Card Sound Road?

Well, the property owner has an option from Lennar that might be worth north of $175 million. But the option doesn’t get exercised if permits can’t be obtained.

There is the matter of hurricane evacuation for 150,000 Keys residents whose lives hang in the balance of zoning and permitting decisions by state regulators, the US Army Corps of Engineers, the Miami-Dade County Commission.

So it's not the 11 hypothetical lives that are being saved by the accelerated timetable--and it's not the taxpayer who is benefiting--it is every real estate developer whose permits have snagged on the problem of hurricane evacuation out of the Keys.

The Miami Today article ends, ‘This project represents a tremendous improvement in environmental quality and traffic safety,’ said Javier Rodriguez, the FDOT District 6 Director. A Community Asphalt executive confirmed that his company has a proposal pending with the state but declined to give details about the offer.’

Miami Today might have reached out to get some other points of view, but it is all one way with that crew.

In the Miami Herald, today, Lennar CEO Stuart Miller confirmed what we have been saying in our blog for some time, that the production housing market is collapsing with no bottom in sight.

No one knows what will happen.

But building roads to facilitate more and more development: in Florida we can do that with our eyes closed.