Ralph Cutié told Commissioners the MIA hotel deal was over. Ten days later, a memo says otherwise | Local News & Updates | The Miami Times

Ten days after Aviation Director Ralph Cutié told Miami-Dade County Commissioners the county was terminating its stalled hotel agreement at Miami International Airport, the administration sent Commissioners a memo saying the agreement is still in effect and the county is looking at adding land to the site to make the project work.

The memo is dated Oct. 16. It went to Chairman Anthony Rodriguez and the Board from Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, with Deputy Mayor Roy Coley signing off.

Commissioner Natalie Milian-Orbis had moved at the Board’s Oct. 6 meeting to require a written status report on the contract with FDR Miami Hotel LLC, the joint venture of Jeffrey Soffer‘s Fontainebleau Development and Stephen Ross‘ Related Companies.

On Oct. 6, Cutié told the Board the developer had come back and said it could not make the project economically viable at the current site, “which is why we’re moving forward now with the termination,” as Bisnow’s Chloe Gallivanreported. He said he expected the termination to be complete within a month and that staff was working to expedite a new request for proposals.

Miami Today reported he told Commissioners the new solicitation could go out for the original site or a larger one, where a hotel could reach a higher room count through width rather than height.

The Oct. 16 memo says the FDR agreement remains in effect and that no final determination has been made on termination or amendment.

It says the Aviation Department is considering an amendment that would fold part of a parcel known as the Taxi Lot into the FDR agreement. The added acreage would give the project room for the amenities a four-star Westin requires, with a pedestrian bridge connecting the two buildings.

The department is prepared to submit the Taxi Lot portion to the Federal Aviation Administration for review. A new solicitation would follow only if the amendment fails. In that case, the memo says, the county “will resume preparations for a new expedited competitive solicitation.”

The memo says FDR has demonstrated experience with projects in complex and challenging development environments and that the department believes the developer “possesses the capabilities and expertise necessary” to deliver the larger project.

The memo says the reevaluation that produced the Taxi Lot idea followed a September meeting with FDR. It does not say when that work began, and it does not say why the option went unmentioned when Cutié described a termination and a rebid on Oct. 6. Cutié is copied on the memo.

The deal dates to a May 2020 Board resolution ordering a competitive solicitation for a new airport hotel. FDR outscored Parmco Airport Hospitality LLC in the evaluation, and the Board awarded a 50-year agreement for the design, financing, construction, and operation of the hotel on July 18, 2023. The contract was executed Aug. 1, 2023.

The plan was a 451-room Westin on about 1.8 acres east of the Dolphin Parking Garage, with a climate-controlled pedestrian bridge to Concourse D. FDR started paying premises rent on Aug. 1, 2023.

Construction was supposed to start by Aug. 1, 2025, and Commissioners were told the hotel would open in June 2026. The county expected the lease to generate roughly $240 million over its life, The Real Deal reported.

On Jan. 7, 2025, the FAA determined a 150-foot building at that spot would create a 3-degree blind spot in the airport’s surveillance radar and capped the height at 121 feet. The department proposed covering the gap with radar from Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport and Homestead. The FAA did not accept it.

FDR filed a force majeure notice on April 15, 2025, citing the FAA determination. The department granted a six-month extension of the construction deadline that May and a 12-month extension this March.

The FAA approved a shorter redesign on Jan. 29, 2026. By then FDR had told the department, at a Dec. 10 meeting, that a Westin could not be built under the height cap and asked for alternative sites.

The department evaluated three: the Short Term Parking Garage, an expansion area east of Concourse D, and the East MIC campus 1.4 miles from the terminal. Each came with constraints, the memo says.

In June, FDR proposed a 532-room hotel on a different site near the Central Terminal. On Aug. 19, the department said that site conflicts with other airport projects and that moving the hotel would be a material change requiring Board approval.

Talks in August and September covered the costs FDR had incurred and the possibility of termination. FDR delivered its cost documentation on Oct. 5. The department’s Program Controls team is reviewing it.

Commissioners on Oct. 6 said they had been promised updates on the hotel and had not received them. Commissioner Juan Carlos Bermudez told staff, “On this one, you guys dropped the ball.” Levine Cava said the FAA height finding had surprised her as well. Rodriguez said he still wants a high-end hotel at the airport.

The memo also addresses an unsolicited proposal that Milian-Orbis said her office had received. The department got the unsigned document from PARMCO Airport Holdings LLC on Oct. 7.

The department’s review found no hotel brand, no letter of intent from an operator, and no financial documentation. The site plans do not show vertical clearances, the level at which a pedestrian bridge would meet the parking garage, or a fire lane, and the memo says the bridge cannot be attached to the garage.

Parmco did not submit the $25,000 application fee required under county code and state law for unsolicited public-private partnership proposals. The county says it has no obligation to respond within 30 days.

Parmco Airport Hospitality LLC, led by Darryl Parmenter and Paul Lambert, finished second to FDR in 2023 with a Hilton proposal. A resolution to negotiate a second hotel with Parmco failed 7-6.

The airport’s Skytrain in Concourse D shut down in September 2023 over structural cracks. About 7% of MIA’s more than 600 elevators, escalators, and moving walkways are out of service on a given day, the Miami Herald’s Douglas Hanksreported in January 2024.

Levine Cava at the time blamed deferred maintenance under prior administrations and promised $7 billion in capital projects. Local officials have long worried the state would try to take the airport away from the county. Voters in 2022 approved a charter amendment requiring voter approval before the Commission can transfer MIA, PortMiami, or the expressway authority to another government.

The only hotel inside the airport remains the 259-room Miami International Airport Hotel at Terminal E, which opened in 1959. In April, Commissioners voted 11-1 to extend its operating contract five years with a five-year option. Cutié called it “the only show in town.” Bermudez cast the no vote.

Cutié has run the Aviation Department since 2021, first as interim and then as Director and CEO after a national search. Before that he was the department’s Assistant Director for Facilities Management and Engineering, the division responsible for maintaining the terminals and their elevators and escalators.

The Board meets Tuesday, and Commissioners asked for the full hotel report then.