In 2016 the City of Miami Beach partnered with  the City of Miami and Miami Dade County to join the 100 Resilient Cities Network, pioneered by the Rockefeller Foundation. This unique three party municipal partnership is in the process of developing an overall Resilience Strategy for the region, Greater Miami & the Beaches (resilient305.com).

Through 100 RC funding and support in 2018, the City sought the Urban Land Institute’s expertise and accepted the group’s recommendations as it relates to long-term integrated sea-level rise mitigation and stormwater management.

On July 27, 2018, the City issued a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) 2018-312-KB, for a Master Design Consultant for Integrated Water Management to firms with successful experience in developing sea level rise and stormwater mitigation strategies.

Through this RFQ, the City seeks to develop a matrix to determine what areas of the city need to be improved and the sequence that should be followed.  Additionally, the City seeks to select a firm to:

1) Provide subject matter expertise to the City on multidisciplinary design approaches inclusive of civil engineering, landscape architecture, urban planning, water quality, drinking water distribution systems, and wastewater collection and conveyance systems;

2) Take the existing engineering and modeling work completed to date by AECOM and City staff, and integrate urban planning, aesthetics, placemaking and other sustainability and quality of life elements so as to develop a dynamic long-term multi-disciplinary and integrated sea-level rise mitigation and stormwater management plan;

3) Act in the capacity of Design Criteria Package (DCP) Professional for future design-build solicitations; and

4) Act in the capacity of Owner’s Representative on various projects as deemed appropriate by the City.

The integrated master plan seeks to build upon the engineering work completed to date and evolve into a more multi-disciplinary and integrated plan that optimizes co-benefits and includes urban planning, aesthetics, placemaking and other sustainability and quality of life elements important to the residents of Miami Beach.

The audience for the master plan would not only be technical engineering City staff, but also elected officials, residents, business owners and other city departments. It would not only lay out the plan moving forward, but also to reasons and rationale for each recommended project.

It will take a few months to award a contract for the aforementioned service and one of the deliverables will be to determine the neighborhood improvement project sequencing.