One contractor holds 37% of Miami-Dade's permitted construction

We pull every new-construction building permit issued by Miami-Dade County and the City of Miami into a rolling wire. Between June 22 and July 17 it holds 47 permits carrying $1.18 billion of declared construction value. Moss & Associates is the contractor of record on $433 million of that, or 36.6%.

Why it matters

Contractor concentration is a schedule risk that never appears in a pro forma. You underwrite land, capital, entitlement and hard cost. You do not underwrite the possibility that the general contractor you want is already carrying a third of the county.

Two of Moss’s permits account for the whole figure: $240 million at 1 Island Drive and $193 million at 1822 NW 37th Avenue, both issued inside the last four weeks. Those are not projects a firm absorbs at the margin. They set superintendent, project-executive and subcontractor-relationship allocation for years, and every subsequent bid that firm prices is priced against that book.

For a mid-size sponsor the practical consequence is bid coverage. If the largest builder in your market is committed, you are not choosing between five qualified GCs, you are choosing between the ones who are not already full, and that shows up as price before it shows up as a rejection.

The numbers

Total declared value across the 47 permits is $1.18 billion. The distribution is heavily top-loaded: the largest five permits account for roughly $843 million, or 71% of the total, which means the remaining 42 permits split about $339 million.

The top of the wire, by declared value:

• $250M, 3800 NE 168th St, contractor JC & Associates Group, issued June 27
• $240M, 1 Island Dr, Moss & Associates, July 16, Swire’s Mandarin Oriental on Brickell Key
• $193M, 1822 NW 37th Ave, Moss & Associates, June 24
• $95M, 1129 NW 1st Ct, John Moriarty and Associates of Florida, July 7
• $65M, 18600 NW 25th Ave, NV2A Group for the City of Miami Gardens, July 13

The housing number is the one worth sitting with. Those 47 permits carry 413 residential units against 5.33 million square feet of permitted floor area. That is one unit for every 12,900 square feet of construction the county approved in a month, in a metro that today passed New York on cost of living.

What’s next

Two things to do with this. If you are a sponsor going out to bid in Miami-Dade this quarter, ask your preferred GC directly what they have picked up in the last 60 days before you build a schedule around them, because the permit record now says the answer for at least one firm.

If you are a subcontractor, the concentration cuts the other way: $433 million with one general is a single relationship worth more than most full bid lists. Our rolling permit and deal wires run at The Wire, and Miami construction coverage on the South Florida hub.