Potain tower crane trio erects Miami’s new administration building

Potain trio puts up Miami’s 748,975 sq ft administration building

Maxim Crane Works deployed a Potain MD559 and two Potain MDT389-L16 tower cranes to erect the City of Miami’s new US$250 million administration building, an eight-month tower crane job on the Miami Freedom Park campus.

Replacing a tower declared obsolete in 2015

The City of Miami has been looking for a way out of its current administrative tower since the building was declared functionally obsolete in 2015. Rather than refurbish, the city opted for a completely new 748,975 sq ft building on the Miami Freedom Park campus, the same development where Maxim recently supported construction of the new Nu Stadium. The US$250 million project will consolidate City Hall, the City Commission chambers, the offices of the commissioners and the mayor, and the city’s civic service departments under one roof, with 890 offices and a 383,000 sq ft atrium laid out around a customer-service concept.

Three Potains for an eight-month cycle

Maxim put three Potain tower cranes on the job: a single MD559 topping out the heavy end of the fleet, flanked by two MDT389-L16 topless units. The trio erected the structure over a period of eight months.

Working inside a dense, busy district next to an active entertainment destination shaped the lift planning. Maxim says it leaned on its experience of stadium and city-centre projects to keep disruption to surrounding city life to a minimum, with tight scheduling and close coordination with the project’s stakeholders.

1,880 new jobs

The finished building is expected to create 1,880 new jobs and will bring together 1,200 municipal employees currently scattered across Miami. For the crane company, the contract is a second win on the Freedom Park campus and a further reference in the government infrastructure market it is actively courting.