Construction should be underway on Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd.'s $300 million corporate headquarters expansion by the end of his month, according to the project's developer, commercial real estate company CBRE, and general contractor Plaza Construction.
At the center of the HOK-designed project will be a new 350,000-square-foot, 10-story building that mimics the lines and flow of an RCL ship and that will allow the company to almost double its workforce at the Port of Miami site when complete in 2024.
The new project, which will provide views of Biscayne Bay and downtown Miami, will also offer green space, terraces and other outdoor spaces, as well as a new parking garage. In addition, the campus will feature electric car chargers, a green roof, solar power, rainwater collectors, recreational space — e.g., a soccer field, volleyball and basketball courts — and a fitness center for employees.
RCL Chairman and CEO referred to this latest project at the port "Miami's first true corporate campus," and said the green space will aid in collaboration and promote wellness. The new building, said Jason Liberty, the company's executive vice president and CFO, will also accommodate RCL's growth and help attract new talent.
Last November, RCL opened a new 170,000-square-foot terminal at the port, which will allow the cruise line to increase the number of passengers it serves each year from 750,000 to more than two million. RCL currently has about 15% of the Port of Miami's traffic.
Not just in Miami
But cruise ship-related construction in Florida isn’t limited to Miami. At Port Canaveral, about 200 miles up the coast from the Port of Miami, Carnival Cruise Line and the Canaveral Port Authority are readying the facility to take delivery of what will be Carnival's biggest ship, the Mardi Gras, in October 2020.
Meanwhile, Ivey's Construction, based in Merritt Island, Florida, broke ground on the $163 million project in March, and construction not only includes the 178,000-square-foot Terminal 3 project but also a 692,000-square-foot parking garage.
Port Canaveral authority commissioners also recently selected two more contractors, PCL Construction and Merritt Island-based Heard Construction, to act as construction manager at risk for a $46.5 million expansion of two existing terminals — one for Disney Cruise Line and a second that serves other cruise operators. The upgrades, at least to the Disney terminal, are part of a 20-year agreement the entertainment giant has with the port to increase its traffic through the Canaveral facility. The project is scheduled for completion in the second quarter of 2021.
