Miami Officials Sign Off on PortMiami Expansion

Despite the coronavirus epidemic that has hampered the entire travel industry, including cruising, several major expansion products at PortMiami will move forward involving several cruise lines.

Miami-Dade County Commissioners made the decision to proceed, authorizing $335 million in bonds according to NBC6 Miami.

“We are continuing with those investments. All we need are the passengers,” PortMiami Director Juan Kuryla told the television station.

The capital projects involve Carnival Corporation, Disney Cruise Line, MSC Cruises, Norwegian Cruise Line, Terminal Link Miami, and Virgin Cruises. The decision comes at a time when cruising, like air travel and lodging, is experiencing record low demand.

In fact, there is a current ban on cruising out of the U.S. that doesn’t end until Oct. 1, making the county’s total investment of $700 million toward the construction of several cruise line terminals and two company headquarters tenuous at the moment.

But Miami-Dade Commissioner Rebeca Sosa has been lobbying the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to sign off on safety protocols and get the boats back in the water.

“We are not telling them let us cruise tomorrow or let us cruise next month,” she told NBC6. “We are telling them, review the plan, tell us what is right, what is wrong, so we can fix it because at the end of the day, you have thousands of residents of Miami Dade-County and the state of Florida that depend on this industry for business.”

PortMiami has lost about $55 million since March.