MIAMI—Miami Beach is poised to get a new convention center. Or is it? The project has been stymied by a lawsuit and an objection from the newly-minted mayor of Miami Beach—who wants to throw negotiations with South Beach ACE out the window.

In a memo, Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine made it clear he thinks the City Commission needs to reconsider the current program in a way that “prioritizes and expedites” the renovation of the Miami Beach Convention Center in line with the community's desires.

Among his recommendations are a motion to rescind the current resolution and terminate negotiations with ACE, which beat out Portman-CMC for the right to develop the district. Levine also wants to approve a motion directing city staff to issue a new solicitation for design and/or construction services for the renovation addition.

“This motion would include scaling down the scope of the previous master plan by removing any requirement for retail or other private commercial uses,” he wrote. He also wants further study on the requirement to develop a hotel, and a 25-year, three-day level of storm water service outside the right-of-way, among other things.

ACE moved quickly to respond to the mayor, noting it was “shocked and disappointed” to read the memo. ACE reminded that the city solicited proposals from seven of the nation's "most respected and accomplished development teams" to design and deliver a world class master plan for the district, including a renovated and expanded convention center and hotel, two years ago.

“Collectively, the teams spent tens of millions of dollars with architects, engineers and planners creating and refining the plan for the project scope directed by the City,” the firm said, alleging that even though ACE was selected as master developer it was never the city's intention to exclusively negotiate with the firm. What's more, ACE asserts the mayor's recommendation works to circumvent the city's original RFQ process in selection of SBACE as Master Developer.

“Starting the process over will undermine the credibility of the city's commitment to the project with both users of the facility and prospective bidders under a new RFP,” ACE said. “The former will continue the exodus of lucrative meeting business from Miami Beach. The latter will raise the question of what reputable national development company would respond to an RFP for a project that is on at least its third iteration with no progress, especially after seeing how much time and money the city caused our team, and all the other bidders, to waste.”

ACE went on to say that it is unrealistic to believe that Levine's current plan will result in a renovated convention center in the near future as a new RFP process will most likely take at least as long as the two years the current process has taken. ACE sees “no logical, non-political reason” why the city would choose to start this process from scratch given the tremendous amount of work the firm has done to this point.

“Injecting politics into what has been a professional and rational business and development project rarely leads to a sound result,” the firm said. “Finally, despite the fact that we consistently expressed our commitment to work in good faith with the new administration, we were never approached by anyone in the City to discuss the Mayor's proposed direction.”