South Beach ACE Wins Major Endorsement

MIAMI—Score one for South Beach ACE. In its battle with Portman CMC, the group a group featuring Tishman Hotels and Robert Wennett just won a major endorsement in its quest for the privilege to redevelop the Miami Beach Convention Center and its 52-acre site.

The National Marine Manufacturers Association (NMMA) is backing South Beach ACE instead of Portman CMC, a group that includes Portman Holdings and CMC Group. The NMMA endorsement marks the first vocal show of support by a Miami Beach Convention Center client since the public bid process began.

“After analyzing Tishman's South Beach ACE proposal, we feel strongly that they should be awarded the project as it represents a well-designed superior plan,” wrote Cathy Rick-Joule, vice president of Southern Shows, show manager for the Progressive Insurance Miami International Boat Show, in a letter to Miami Beach City Manager Jimmy Morales. “I fully support the City of Miami Beach in awarding this prestigious project to Tishman's South Beach ACE.”

Led by Tishman, international architecture firm OMA, convention center design experts TVS and Miami Beach developer UIA, South Beach ACE is relishing in the victory. News of the NMMA endorsement comes less than one week before South Beach ACE will present its final plans during a May 14 public meeting.

“The input we've gathered from residents, stakeholders, and convention center users, including the Miami International Boat Show, has been invaluable to our team,” says Dan Tishman, the New York-based developer who is currently overseeing the reconstruction of the World Trade Center site and the renovation of the Jacob Javits Convention Center in Manhattan. “Their ideas, coupled with the expertise of the top architecture and convention center planning firms in the world, has resulted in a vision that elevates the Miami Beach Convention Center to world-class status while encouraging visitors to experience all that the City of Miami Beach has to offer.”

The input collected from groups including the NMMA included repeated calls for a fully-integrated convention center that encompasses various uses under a single roof, as well as enhanced access to nearby Lincoln Road Mall and hotels located east of the site. South Beach ACE's plans call for combining the revamped convention center, a new hotel, meeting rooms, and ballrooms within a single structure that will ensure optimum efficiency and functionality. The team has also incorporated numerous entrances on the building's east- and west-facing facades, with a new main entrance oriented toward Lincoln Road on the south.