Hub of Wonder

I planned to go and then got injured at MIA ( talk about a no fly zone😖) and am almost ready to do the kind of walking that will take. I will report to be sure. Of course maybe one of my Opko buddies from the area will go with me... Daddy Warbucks is a no go on such things. I expect it to be one of the world's best. I'll let ya know😉.    Miami

I remember Andrew..... lucky to be in Ft lauderdale when it bobbed to the south and hit Miami.... driving to the keys a month later to go fishing I witnessed the devistation throughout Homestead .  I hope that you are safe and  look forward to your report on the Hub of Wonder when you get to go.... stay safe.... dan

miami, thanks so much for this update. I was wondering if Irma affected the museum.

Hope your clean up is going well. Relieved you and our other miamians made it through safely!

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Building on 50 years of excellence at our former location, camps are back at Frost Science!

Camps at Frost Science provide an unforgettable experience for children to dive deeper into the science of the museum. From our one-day Mini-Camps to our eight-week Summer Camp, our programs offer opportunities to explore, experiment, investigate, invent and discover, through animal encounters, star shows, multimedia experiences, interactive exhibits, live science demos and engaging hands-on activities. Our camps are fully-inclusive and presented by teachers, scientists and museum staff in our unique, spectacular and safe facility. We guarantee our camps will build memories that will last a lifetime!
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Mini-Camp

No school? No problem! Our dynamic Mini-Camps are the perfect action-packed solution to a Teacher Workday. Kids will spend the day exploring the museum’s interactive exhibitions, conducting science experiments and making new friends in the beautiful bayside setting of Museum Park.

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Spring Camp

Spring into science with our week-long Spring Camp! Kids will spend their break exploring the museum, watching a Frost Planetarium show and learning about a cool science topic through hands-on experiments and activities.

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Summer Camp (Jun 18th – Aug 10th 2018)

Explore the wonders of science through four different week-long camps themed around the amazing science showcased at Frost Science including engineering, astronomy, marine biology and health. Design a plane or rocket ship, meet the animals in our Aquarium, explore the universe in our state-of-the-art 8K Planetarium and learn about the amazing human body and brain.

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Winter Break from school is the perfect time to chill out with science! Join Frost Science for two weeks of camp sessions and start the new year with some amazing experiments, discoveries and investigations, all while creating friendships that’ll extend beyond the museum walls.

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Phillip and Patricia Frost
Museum of Science
1101 Biscayne Blvd
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Miami, FL 33132
305-434-9600
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FAB PHOTOTS Take a peek! Miami


www.boston.com/culture/travel/2018/03/21/miamis-new-frost-science-museum-is-one-very-cool-spot

Miami’s new Frost Science museum is one very cool spot

The Boston Globe

Note: This is not a suit against Phillip Frost. He received naming rights for his large support and is also directing the course of the Museum which just celebrated one year of amazing attendance.

Miami Herald | MiamiHerald.comBuilder suing Miami’s Frost Science Museum over unpaid bills for construction work | Miami Herald

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Tour the new Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science
"This should be a tribute to curiosity." The new Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science opens to the public in downtown Miami on Monday.
By Jose A. Iglesias
MIAMI-DADE COUNTY
Builder suing Miami’s Frost Science Museum over unpaid bills for construction work
BY DOUGLAS HANKS

dhanks@miamiherald.com

April 03, 2018 02:51 PM

Updated April 03, 2018 03:52 PM

The Frost Science Museum has been open for nearly a year, and it’s already been visited by almost 1 million people. But it’s not finished, and the nonprofit and the general contractor are fighting over who should pay to complete the work.

The museum faces a lawsuit from its main contractor claiming the nonprofit unfairly held back payments and left construction work undone as budget strains forced it to cut costs in the final months of building the mostly tax-funded $300 million project in downtown Miami.

Skanska, a construction firm with headquarters in Sweden, claims the Frost essentially shut off payments in November after receiving its final occupancy permit from Miami. But even with the permit in hand, tasks remained within the 250,000-square-foot tribute to science — and the dispute centers on who has to pay for them.

Frost refused Skanska’s “extraordinary efforts” to bring the museum “project to final completion” because the nonprofit wanted the company to do the work for free, according to the lawsuit filed Monday in Miami-Dade Circuit Court.

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“The public is enjoying Downtown Miami’s newest museum, but the workers who built the building haven’t been paid in full for their labor. Skanska and its subcontractors — including many small and local businesses — are owed millions,” Skanska USA general manager Michael Brown said in a statement.

Frank Steslow, the museum’s president, described the outstanding construction tasks as mostly minor finishes and fixes discovered after the museum opened in May 2017 with a temporary occupancy permit. He said Skanska’s contract requires the contractor to cover the work under its warranty, and that Frost isn’t about to overpay for a project built with nearly $200 million in county dollars.

“We have an obligation to the county and to taxpayers to ensure that the value of the work that was bought and paid for was received,” Steslow said. “We take that seriously.”

The suit asks a judge to order the Patricia and Phillip Frost Museum of Science to pay Skanska for its supervisory work finishing up the project’s to-do list and to release funds set aside for some subcontractors. The filing does not reveal the dollar amount that Skanska claims it is owed for the work.

Frost is already in litigation with its original contractor, Suffolk Construction, which the museum fired in 2014, two years after starting one of the most complicated construction projects in the Southeast.

In the suit, Skanska described taking over a construction site plagued with mosquito-infested standing water, unpaid subcontractors and a cash flow squeeze severe enough that Skanska deferred some charges to give Frost time to secure more loans.

Concerns about the Frost’s financial future only escalated after that, with the museum’s fundraising plans falling short and Miami-Dade stepping in to fill the gap. Mayor Carlos Gimenez in 2016 agreed to add $49 million to the $160 million in county funds already pledged to construction of the museum, but on the condition that the nonprofit forgo a planned $4 million yearly operating subsidy.

Frost executives said they could make up the day-to-day loss after its lending costs dropped from the infusion of extra construction dollars from the county. Steslow said attendance has exceeded expectations, and that the first year’s results bode well for the bottom line.

“We’re doing great. We surpassed 800,000 visitors,” he said. “We couldn’t be happier with where we are.”

Both sides in the construction dispute describe the outstanding items as relatively minor, and not ones that the typical visitor would notice. Steslow said some exterior walls are discolored, some doors are losing their finishes, and some electrical outlets don’t work. An August 2017 letter from Skanska lists 7,000 “punch-list items” that the museum’s architect said still needed to be completed. Skanska said that since the museum had been open for months, many of the requested fixes qualified as wear-and-tear items the museum should pay for.

The one notable flaw involves the decorative conical wall surrounding the museum’s signature 500,000-gallon aquarium. In a March 5 letter to Steslow, Skanska senior vice president MacAdam Glinn described the problem: Panels at the ceiling-level floor of the aquarium — the “oculus opening” — don’t line up properly. Glinn said Skanska was instructing the subcontractor in charge of the project to fix it, but noted the company’s agreement to step in as Frost’s second contractor gives it the right to be paid for supervisory work until the task is finished. He didn’t predict an easy fix.

“As you know,” Glinn wrote in the letter filed as an exhibit in the suit, “the conical ceiling is a complex architectural feature that will require procurement of specialty long-lead items and significant coordination of the remedial work.”

In his interview, Steslow acknowledged the flaw but described the problem as a cosmetic one. He dismissed the Skanska suit as a minor challenge for the well-received museum.

“Quite frankly, this is a little bit of background noise to me, for what was otherwise a very successful year,” he said.

A visitor looks up at a diver inside the 500,000-gallon Gulf Stream aquarium, days before the Patricia and Phillip Frost Museum of Science opened on May 8, 2017. The museum is fighting with its contractor over who should pay for unfinished construction tasks, including redoing decorative panels along the aquarium’s 31-foot-wide oculus lens. AL DIAZ adiaz@miamiherald.com