The Painstaking Battle to Build Miami’s New Signature Bridge Arches

In early August, the Florida Dept. of Transportation quietly extended—for the second time in two years—the expected completion date to 2029 for the now $866-million Miami Signature Bridge project. The schedule is now five years past the original 2024 target that the Archer Western-de Moya Joint Venture had aimed for in 2019, when it started construction on the one-of-a-kind, six-arch bridge and surrounding interstate highway reconstruction project.

The project team has found that erecting the structure is a singular construction challenge. Unlike more standard precast segmental bridges, the vast majority of the arches’ 345 precast segments are so different from each other that it was next to impossible for precaster Rizzani de Eccher to standardize their construction.

“This is the most complex design-build segmental bridge, honestly, in the world,” says Riccardo Castracani, the firm’s business development director. “We’ve never encountered something of this magnitude,” he adds, referencing the company’s global experience. “As complex as it looks from afar, you can multiply that by ten” when scrutinized closely.

A view of the Signature Bridge Arch 5 as Archer Western-de Moya Joint Venture nears final erection in August.
Photo by Nicole Bryant, the Corradino Group/Courtesy FDOT

For the overall project, and especially the Signature Bridge, Oscar Gonzalez, senior community outreach specialist for the state DOT, notes that the team makes extensive efforts to keep the community apprised of the project’s progress on current and future activities via its project website and weekly emails to roughly 4,000 subscribers, he says.

Monthly stakeholder meetings, open to the public, attract representatives of local venues—such as the nearby performing arts center—and elected officials, he adds.

With three of the bridge’s six arches now erected in the heart of Miami, the complex design remains in the spotlight for the builders.