New Times artist conception/Photos by Phillip Pessar (Signature Bridge), Rafael Saldaña (fireworks), and Leandro Bernardes Lopes (fighters 1, 2) via Flickr
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Earlier this week, construction crews began to erect a giant octagonal cage on the White House Lawn ahead of next month’s Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) spectacle celebrating America’s 250th birthday and (coincidentally, surely) President Donald Trump’s 80th birthday. (Yes, that is a real sentence you just read.) Photos published by the Associated Press show cranes and workers piecing together the red-and-blue UFC arena on the South Lawn for the UFC Freedom 250 fight, which Trump has said will include “a 5,000-seat arena right outside the front door of the White House.”
But while social media users who saw previews of the scene quickly drew comparisons to things like a popular satirical movie from 2006, some Miami residents might’ve instead felt a sudden wave of, erm, construction-related PTSD.
That’s because the White House UFC cage project looks a hell of a lot like the bane of many Miami drivers’ existence: the Signature Bridge.
You’ve seen it. You’ve heard people (including unlikely folk hero Iggy Azalea) complain about it. You’ve probably cursed at it while sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the highway.
The massive project, slated to cost $840 million, includes the construction of the spider-like structure and a double-decker portion of State Road 836. Overseen by the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) and the Miami-Dade Expressway Authority (MDX), the Signature Bridge will, allegedly, eventually alleviate Miami’s hellish traffic, but it has been mired in repeated delays for years. It has also drawn criticism over its safety and design, especially after several construction workers were hospitalized in a serious on-site accident, and another worker died at the construction site. While it’s now scheduled to be finished by late 2029, most longtime residents aren’t exactly holding their breath.
Online renderings show what the completed fight space is slated to look like for the June 14 event. Photos show a wire-mesh fence ringed by a red, white, and blue stage beneath a towering, Signature Bridge-esque arch emblazoned with stars and stripes. The arch is flanked by two large television screens on each side to display the action live.
In other words, like seemingly every other major construction project on Earth, the White House UFC cage will likely be finished long before Miami’s Signature Bridge.
