MIAMI—Still battling in the court of public opinion, Portman-CMC has released a “Top 5 Reasons” list for why its plan to develop the Miami Beach Convention Center is better for City of Miami Beach and its taxpayers than rival South Beach ACE's plan.

The Top 5 Reasons list points out differences between the two finalists' proposals as put forth in their respective Letters of Intent to the Miami Beach Commission. Both letters are publically available on the City of Miami Beach website here. Here is Portman-CMC's list. We'll follow up this afternoon with South Beach ACE's own reasoning about why it's plan is better.

1. Portman-CMC plan will cost the public less. Portman-CMC says its plan would require $75.6 million less in public cost than ACE's, according to a breakdown by the city analysis. Here's the defense of that statement: Total costs for the Portman-CMC proposal are $656.5 million, compared to $715.0 million for ACE. These numbers, however, must be modified as they include components that are not public costs. After deducting Portman-CMC's $32.1 million private contribution to the public for open space and ACE's $10.6 million private contribution to the public for open space, then deducting ACE's $4.4 million in excess proceeds, you arrive at the total public costs of $624.4 million for Portman-CMC and $700.0 million for ACE. The gap between these numbers is $75.6 million, the difference in the total public costs of the two projects.