Gov. Cuomo unveils leading contender for Tappan Zee Bridge replacement

The leading contender to replace the aging Tappan Zee Bridge is a futuristic, $3.142 billion design that came in over one billion dollars under budget.

Gov. Cuomo unveiled the bridge — which was selected as the best choice by his Tappan Zee replacement committee — at a cabinet meeting this afternoon along with two other proposals.

Not only was the selection committee’s top choice the cheapest option of the three, it also was the quickest, with a construction time of five years and two and a half months.

Another design — which looked similar to the Golden Gate Bridge — cost $3.99 billion and a completion date of just under six years.

SEE ALL THREE PROPOSALS HERE

The most expensive option cost $4.059 billion. That bridge would likely take five years and 11 months.

Another $600 to $800 million is expected to be added to the cost of whatever bridge is chosen for extra costs, like project management, contingencies, and oversight.

The expected cost to replace the Tappan Zee had been pegged at $5.2 billion, far more than any of the estimated.

The Thruway Authorority’s board will vote on Dec. 17 on the final design.

jennifer.fermino@nypost.com

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Innovate MIA puts spotlight on startup community

If you think the next week is all about art, you may be surprised to learn there are also six entrepreneurship events vying for your time.

And that is all by design.

In much the way that Art Basel helped put Miami’s arts community on the international map, organizers of the first Innovate MIA hope their weeklong grouping of events will shine a light on the city’s growing tech startup community and its position as the gateway to Latin America.

Many of the events — ending with Florida International University’s Americas Venture Capital Conference — are after Art Basel. That’s also why the third annual AVCC was moved to Dec. 13-14 from its previous mid-November dates.

“Our message is come for Art Basel, and stay for AVCC,” said Juan Pablo Cappello, a lawyer, entrepreneur and investor who is on the steering committee of the venture capital conference and several other Innovate MIA events. And all week, there will be plenty of opportunities for Miami’s entrepreneurs, creatives and investors to mingle with their counterparts from all over the Americas and beyond.

In addition to the AVCC, there’s Incubate Miami’s DemoDay, where its class of startups present their companies, the martial arts-inspired TekFight and HackDay, which dangles a $50,000 cash prize. Endeavor, the global nonprofit that promotes high-impact entrepreneurship in emerging economies, is bringing its two-day International Selection Panel to Miami, and Wayra, an international accelerator, is holding a one-day event to showcase its promising startups from Latin America and Spain. It’s all part of Innovate MIA week: “I don’t think anything like it has ever been organized here in South Florida,” Cappello said.

The AVCC will be the big draw, with about 300 people expected to attend the two-day event at the JW Marriott Brickell. The conference, themed “Data, Design & Dollars,” will feature thought leaders from all over the world, particularly Latin America, and presentations by 29 selected companies. This year, the format has been overhauled and energized, with lots of short talks and more time for question-and-answer sessions and networking, said Jerry Haar, associate dean of FIU’s College of Business, director of the Pino Global Entrepreneurship Center and AVCC co-chair.

The AVCC’s 36 speakers include Martin Varsavsky, Argentine tech entrepreneur, investor and founder of Viatel, Ya.com, Jazztel and FON; Hernan J. Kazah, co-founder and managing partner at Kaszek Ventures and co-founder of Mercadolibre; and Jason L. Baptiste, CEO and co-founder of Onswipe. There’s also Michael Jackson, former COO of Skype and now a venture capitalist; Albert Santalo, founder and CEO of Miami-based CareCloud; and Bedy Yang of 500 Startups.

Chosen from more than 100 applicants, the 29 presenting companies hailing from all over the Americas will be giving either two-minute or five-minute pitches, fielding questions from a panel of judges and competing for prize packages valued at about $50,000. Eight of the startups are from South Florida: itMD, Kairos, Trapezoid Digital Security, Esenem, LiveNinja, OnTrade, Rokk3r Labs and Zavee.

The presenting companies have “proven innovation, proven management teams and the ability to scale well and be a pan-regional player,” said Faquiry Diaz Cala, president of Tres Mares Group and co-chair of AVCC. “The word is out this is a great place to come and pitch to great investors in addition to potentially being one of the prize winners.”

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Miami-Dade Commission postpones Jackson Health System decision

Miami-Dade County Commissioners postponed Tuesday voting on a resolution concerning the future shape of the governing board of the Jackson Health System.

Commissioner Rebeca Sosa asked for the delay and no one opposed the move.

In October, the commission voted 6-5 to make permanent a seven-member Jackson board, selected by a nominating committee of nine persons, five of whom would be board members. The commission would then approve the nominees.

That resolution was pushed hard by Commission Chairman Joe Martinez. Martinez, who lost the mayoral race, left the board in November, and Commissioner Barbara Jordan led an effort to reconsider.

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Adriana Lima Reveals Kick-Butt Fitness Secrets

Victoria's Secret model Adriana Lima is one of the Angels starring in tonight's much-anticipated televised fashion show and we caught up with this supermodel/mom in the gym, where she demonstrates how intense boxing workouts helped get her back in to shape after giving birth to her second child in September.

"The doctor gave me the okay about three weeks after I gave birth and literally two days after that I started working out -- every single day, two times a day," Adriana said, adding that she kept up the same vigorous pace right up until the taping of the fashion show, which airs tonight at 10 p.m. on CBS.

VIDEO: Inside Victoria's Secret's Fashion Show Casting

We also spoke with Adriana's trainer, former professional boxer Michael Olajide, who co-founded the AeroSpace fitness studio in New York where she and other celebrities work out. Michael said his unconventional approach to exercise can produce the perfect all-round results for his clients.

"A lot of other exercises, especially cardio exercises, teach you how to run, dance and cycle, so you're using your legs. With aero boxing, you're using your core and your arms," said Michael. "So you're using your upper body to get a great cardio workout, but you also get the great abs, and the beautiful arms, and everything else to go with it."

RELATED: Adriana Lima Gives Birth to Baby Girl 

Adriana said her trainer has been a great motivator. "You need to sacrifice to get the best results and I always got the greatest results with him." For his part, Michael said Adriana's commitment makes his job a lot easier. "Adriana has the mind of a fighter. She's extremely competitive, she always likes to be at the best of her game. So I don't feel that it's a challenge for me at all. I put the challenge out there and she always accepts it."

Watch the video to see Adriana kick some serious butt in the boxing ring and to also hear her advice for Kate Middleton as she prepares for motherhood.

VIDEO: Adriana Lima: How My Husband 'Got Me'

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Singer loses bid to wrest $250M from Argentina

Paul Singer’s last-ditch attempt to get cash from Argentina this year has failed.

A motion by Singer’s hedge fund, Elliott Management, requesting that the South American country put up a security deposit of $250 million by Dec. 10 was denied by a federal appeals court today.

“Since we will not have a big payment for ages (if ever), this looks like a huge blow to [Elliott’s] strategy,” said sovereign-debt expert Anna Gelpern,

The appellate slap-down of the billionaire hedgie is the second in a week. Last week, the same panel overturned a decision by a District Court judge that would have required Argentina to put $1.3 billion in escrow to pay Elliott by Dec. 15, pending further appeals in a court battle that has dragged on for a decade.

Argentina is scheduled to pay $3 billion on Dec. 15 to exchange bondholders who agreed to big write downs on their debt. Elliott and other so-called holdouts did not agree to the restructuring and are demanding full repayment.

District Judge Thomas Griesa ruled Singer and his band of holdout bondholders are entitled to get paid in full when Argentina made payments to the others.

Argentina President Cristina Kirchner has repeatedly said that the country would never pay Singer and the other holdouts.

In the wake of Griesa’s ruling, when it appeared Argentina might make no payment in order to avoid paying Singer — which could have caused the restructured bonds to default — the price of those bonds went into a tailspin while the price of insuring the country’s debt skyrocketed.

The prices of both returned to more normal levels this week.

The concerns of exchange bondholders — as well as other third parties involved in making the payments, such as Bank of New York — were ignored by Griesa.

But the appeals court decided to give them time to make their case. It allowed the other bondholders — led by hedge funds Gramercy, Brevan Howard and Alliance Bernstein — to intervene in the case.

The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals panel in Manhattan also set up a schedule for a fuller hearing of the argument, which stretches into late February.

Elliott tried to amend the process via its emergency motion requesting a security deposit as a “good faith” effort by Argentina. Singer’s $20 billion hedge fund argued that if its motion wasn’t granted by Dec. 15, it might get nothing.

“Argentina is . . . actively planning to evade the [court order] by attempting to move offshore its payment structure under the exchange bonds and will use the time to implement such plans,” said lawyer Ted Olsen in Elliott’s motion.

The hedge fund had made such arguments before, citing speculation in the Argentine press. However, a source close to Elliott told The Post it was “highly unlikely” that such work-arounds would be successful.

While Elliott’s emergency motion was a long shot, its demand for $250 million so incensed the exchange bondholders that they quickly shot back at Singer — asking the appeals court to force the billionaire to post $2 billion to an escrow account to help cover losses they might incur if it granted Elliott’s request and Argentina refused to post the security deposit.

Previously, Argentina broached the notion of reopening its debt exchange just days before the appeals court reinstituted its stay. Bondholders who had feared default were encouraged by that, believing it signaled Argentina that was open to negotiating with Elliott behind closed doors.

Those plans are believed to be on ice now, as the country works on its new brief.

mcelarier@nypost.com

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The business behind the artist: Miami’s art gallery scene still evolving

This week, thousands of art collectors, museum trustees, artists, journalists and hipsters from around the globe will arrive for the phenomenon known as Art Basel Miami Beach. The centerpiece of the week: works shown at the convention center by more than 260 of the world’s top galleries.

Only two of those are from Miami.

While Art Basel has helped transform the city’s reputation from beach-and-party scene to arts destination in the years since its 2002 Miami Beach debut, the region’s gallery identity is still coming into its own.

“Certainly Miami as an art town registers mightily because of the foundations, the collectors who have done an extraordinary job,” said Linda Blumberg, executive director of the Art Dealers Association of America. “I think there’s a definite international awareness there. But the gallery scene probably has a bit of a ways to go. That doesn’t mean it’s not really fascinating and interesting.”

The gallery business, especially where newer artists are concerned, is a game of risk, faith and passion. Once a gallery takes on an artist who shows promise, they become an evangelist on their behalf, showing their work in-house and at fairs, presenting it to museums and curators and potential collectors and bearing the cost of that promotion.

For contemporary artists, most galleries take work on consignment, meaning they get a cut of as much as 50 percent when works sell. While local art galleries have been growing in number and popularity in the last several years — just try to find parking during the monthly art walk in Miami’s hot Wynwood neighborhood — even some of the area’s top art dealers say that while business overall is good, they struggle in the local marketplace.

“Our problem is that we have to do lots of art fairs in order to connect with the market that we need to connect with to sell the work that we have,” said Fredric Snitzer, a Miami-Dade gallery owner for 35 years. “The better the work is, the harder it is to sell in Miami. And that ain’t good.”

A handful of serious collectors call Miami home and store their own collections in Miami, including the Braman, Rubell, Margulies and de la Cruz families. But outside a relatively small local group, many gallerists say, their clients come from other parts of the country and world.

And some gallerists point out the troubling reality that even the powerhouse Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin could not stay open in Miami for more than a few years.

“The fact that big galleries have not been able to sustain their business models in South Florida tells you we’re obviously not at this high established point,” said gallery owner David Castillo. “It’s not like we’ve arrived, let’s sit back and watch Hauser & Wirth open down the street.”

Still, Miami’s gallery business has come a long way since the early 1970s, when a few dealers on Bay Harbor Island’s Kane Concourse were selling high-end pieces but the local scene was hardly embraced.

Virginia Miller, who owns ArtSpace/Virginia Miller Galleries in Coral Gables, first opened in 1974 to showcase Florida artists, though her focus soon added an international scope. She and other longtime observers credit several factors for Miami’s transformation, including the community’s diversity, the establishment of important museums, the Art Miami fair that started 23 years ago, the presence of major collections and, of course, Art Basel Miami Beach.

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Lesbian bride who married partner at West Point is ’still processing all of the emotions’

As Brenda Sue Fulton stood in the back of West Point’s Cadet Chapel on Saturday, about to marry longtime partner Penelope Gnesin, an old friend said to her, "Well roomie, did you ever think this would happen?"

“No, not in a million years,’ ” said Fulton, originally of Stuart, Fla., as she and Gnesin became the first same-sex couple to marry at West Point’s Cadet Chapel.

“It was amazing,” Fulton told The Miami Herald on Sunday. “I’m still processing all of the emotions. There were so many of our friends from the Army, the Navy, the Marines, the Air Force, the Coast Guard, straight and gay. Family and friends. We had 250 people there and it was just overwhelming.”

Nadine Smith, a friend of Fulton’s and executive director of Equality Florida, the state’s largest gay-rights group, described the Fulton-Gnesin nuptials as “a big deal.”

“And yet despite her service to our country and this historic wedding at West Point, her marriage will not be recognized when she returns to her home state of Florida,” Smith said.

Fulton graduated from Martin County High School and attended West Point from 1976-80. She was among the first class of women to graduate from West Point.

“That was the the place where I first said the Cadet Prayer. That includes the language, ‘Make me choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong. And never settle for a half-truth when the whole can be won.’ That inspired us when we formed the LGBT West Point alumni, we assumed that as our motto.”

Fulton served five-and-a-half years in the Army. She served for five years in the Signal Corps in Germany, as a platoon leader, staff officer, and company commander.

In January 1986, Fulton left the Army. She didn’t want to continue hiding her sexual orientation.

“My obligation was complete,” Fulton said. “I just couldn’t continue to tell the white-lies and half-truths knowing I was gay. I left the Army as a captain.”

After leaving the military, Fulton went into the pharmaceuticals business.

Fulton, 53, and Gnesin, 52, have been together for 17 years.

“We met at a community sing at the local Presbyterian church,” Fulton said. “Penny was a choral director in her free time. I had been singing a long time. I saw her smile and I was done for. She heard my voice and came right over.”

Gnesin retired from AT&T after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. The couple lives in Asbury Park, N.J.

Fulton was active in the movement to end ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’ She is executive director of Knights Out, West Point’s LGBT group for alumni, staff and faculty. Also, she is a founder and communications director of OutServe, an association of active LGBT military personnel.

She’s a bit overwhelmed by how quickly the gay-rights movement seems to be advancing. When ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ ended in September 2011, it didn’t occur to Fulton that she would soon marry Gnesin at West Point. (New York State began allowing same-sex marriages two months before DADT ended.)

“Marriage seemed a lot farther away than service,” she said.

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Jamie Foxx & Kerry Washington's Confidential 'Django Unchained'

The countdown is on for Quentin Tarantino's highly anticipated Django Unchained, and its stars Jamie Foxx and Kerry Washington were excited to talk about the Christmas Day release at the 10th anniversary celebration of Los Angeles Confidential magazine, with Jamie saying, "It's just a ride."

Pics: Jamie & Leo Smolder in 'Django'

"Everybody [in the cast] was fantastic," says Jamie, who just days ago saw the final cut of the film. "Kerry Washington, Christoph Waltz is amazing, Leonardo DiCaprio blows your mind, Samuel Jackson -- I'm just humbled to be in it."

The duo have united for the cover of Los Angeles Confidential magazine's December/January issue, and the Django co-stars partied it up over the weekend at the Supperclub Los Angeles. Many of Kerry's Scandal co-stars came out to support their good friend at the star-studded event, and entertainment included DJ Benjamin Walker and Verve Recording artists The Tenors. At one point Jamie became an impromptu emcee while Kerry danced by his side until he introduced the multi-platinum selling Tenors, who performed at the end of the event to send guests off into the night.

Pics: Jamie Foxx Kills It in 'Django' Trailer

During the chic party presented by Merrill Lynch Wealth Management and sponsored by Burgess Yachts, Group Publisher Alison Miller and Editor in Chief Spencer Beck, along with L.A. tastemakers, watched an aerialist perform and sipped on specialty cocktails by Chambord Flavored Vodka.

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R train to Whitehall resumes for first time since Sandy

AP

Service on the R train to the Whitehall Street Station resume today for the first time since Sandy.

The MTA resumed R train service today to Whitehall Street station in Manhattan for the first time since the system was shuttered for monster storm Sandy.

Trains had been stopping at 34th Street because of serious damage to the Lower Manhattan station and the line’s signals system.

“The resumption of service to the Whitehall Street station will restore a vital link to Midtown’s West Side for Staten Islanders and also ease crowding along the Lexington Avenue Line,” said Governor Cuomo.

There is still no Brooklyn-Manhattan R train service because of flooding damage to the Montague Tube, which carries the trains under the East River.

Service between the two boroughs is expected to resume by the end of the month.

“Transit workers continue to work around the clock to bring the Montague Tube back online, which will complete the R Line link from lower Manhattan to Downtown Brooklyn,” said MTA Chairman Joseph Lhota.

jennifer.fermino@nypost.com

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The business behind the artist: Miami’s art gallery scene still evolving

This week, thousands of art collectors, museum trustees, artists, journalists and hipsters from around the globe will arrive for the phenomenon known as Art Basel Miami Beach. The centerpiece of the week: works shown at the convention center by more than 260 of the world’s top galleries.

Only two of those are from Miami.

While Art Basel has helped transform the city’s reputation from beach-and-party scene to arts destination in the years since its 2002 Miami Beach debut, the region’s gallery identity is still coming into its own.

“Certainly Miami as an art town registers mightily because of the foundations, the collectors who have done an extraordinary job,” said Linda Blumberg, executive director of the Art Dealers Association of America. “I think there’s a definite international awareness there. But the gallery scene probably has a bit of a ways to go. That doesn’t mean it’s not really fascinating and interesting.”

The gallery business, especially where newer artists are concerned, is a game of risk, faith and passion. Once a gallery takes on an artist who shows promise, they become an evangelist on their behalf, showing their work in-house and at fairs, presenting it to museums and curators and potential collectors and bearing the cost of that promotion.

For contemporary artists, most galleries take work on consignment, meaning they get a cut of as much as 50 percent when works sell. While local art galleries have been growing in number and popularity in the last several years — just try to find parking during the monthly art walk in Miami’s hot Wynwood neighborhood — even some of the area’s top art dealers say that while business overall is good, they struggle in the local marketplace.

“Our problem is that we have to do lots of art fairs in order to connect with the market that we need to connect with to sell the work that we have,” said Fredric Snitzer, a Miami-Dade gallery owner for 35 years. “The better the work is, the harder it is to sell in Miami. And that ain’t good.”

A handful of serious collectors call Miami home and store their own collections in Miami, including the Braman, Rubell, Margulies and de la Cruz families. But outside a relatively small local group, many gallerists say, their clients come from other parts of the country and world.

And some gallerists point out the troubling reality that even the powerhouse Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin could not stay open in Miami for more than a few years.

“The fact that big galleries have not been able to sustain their business models in South Florida tells you we’re obviously not at this high established point,” said gallery owner David Castillo. “It’s not like we’ve arrived, let’s sit back and watch Hauser & Wirth open down the street.”

Still, Miami’s gallery business has come a long way since the early 1970s, when a few dealers on Bay Harbor Island’s Kane Concourse were selling high-end pieces but the local scene was hardly embraced.

Virginia Miller, who owns ArtSpace/Virginia Miller Galleries in Coral Gables, first opened in 1974 to showcase Florida artists, though her focus soon added an international scope. She and other longtime observers credit several factors for Miami’s transformation, including the community’s diversity, the establishment of important museums, the Art Miami fair that started 23 years ago, the presence of major collections and, of course, Art Basel Miami Beach.

Read More..