🌊 Save Our Marinas
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August 28, 2026

The Court Won't Save Our Marinas. On November 3, You Can.

A judge has refused to take the Virginia Key marina lease off the ballot. The lawsuit survives — but it won't be tried until September 2027, ten months after the votes are counted. There is now exactly one thing standing between 27.62 acres of public waterfront and a 75-year lease: City of Miami voters. Vote NO on November 3 - it is the only thing that stops this deal in time.

Vote NO on November 3 - it is the only thing that stops this deal in time.

If you have been waiting for a court to fix this, stop waiting.

In August, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Lisa Walsh denied a request to block the Virginia Key marina referendum from reaching the ballot. The question is going to voters on November 3. It will appear on your ballot whether or not the underlying lease is a good deal for the City of Miami.

That leaves one decision-maker. You.

What the court actually did

Let's be precise, because precision is the whole point of this website.

The current marina operator and a restaurant tenant sued the City of Miami and the Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections on July 1. They argued the ballot language misleads voters, that the City never established fair market value, and that the proposed lease departs materially from what was originally bid.

They asked the court for an emergency order keeping the question off the November ballot. Judge Walsh denied that request. She found their arguments did not meet the legal standard required for an injunction.

We are not going to spin that. It was a loss, and the developer's president called it a win for Miami residents the same day.

What the judge did not do is end the case. The lawsuit is still alive. The claims about the ballot language and fair market value have not been decided one way or the other - they are headed for trial, reportedly in September 2027.

What a 2027 trial means — and what it doesn't

Here is the part that matters for your November decision.

A trial date is not a verdict, and it is not a signal. Courts set trial dates as a matter of routine scheduling. Nobody should read the existence of a September 2027 trial as the judge taking a side. She hasn't. The merits are simply unresolved.

And the timing is the whole story. Count the months. Ballots are mailed in October. Early voting runs October 24 through October 31. Votes are counted November 3 2026.

The trial happens roughly ten months after that.

If this referendum passes in November, the City will have voter authorization to enter a lease of 27.62 acres of public waterfront for an initial 45 years with two 15-year renewals — up to 75 years. A lawsuit resolved in late 2027 is arguing about a decision the public already made. That is a bad position to be in, and no amount of confidence in the eventual legal outcome changes it.

A court case is the slow, uncertain, expensive path. A NO vote on November 3 is the fast, certain, free one.

That is not a rhetorical flourish. It is a calendar.

What is actually on your ballot

The certified ballot summary asks whether the City should lease approximately 27.62 acres on Virginia Key to Virginia Key, LLC for:

  • A 45-year initial term with two 15-year renewals — up to 75 years
  • Minimum annual guaranteed rent of $2,200,000 with escalations, totaling approximately $203,980,000 over the initial term, plus 6% of gross revenues
  • Approximately $80,000,000 in privately funded redevelopment including boat storage, restaurants, retail, and public parking

Virginia Key, LLC is a joint venture between RCI Marine Group and Suntex Marinas, headquartered in Dallas, Texas.

Why we say the terms are stale

This is the argument, and here is exactly where it comes from.

The financial terms trace back to a bidding process the City ran in 2015 and 2017. A 2023 circuit court ruling found the City acted arbitrarily and capriciously in rejecting the RCI–Suntex proposal, and ordered it advanced. The Third District Court of Appeal affirmed in 2024. The remedy the courts imposed left the City with essentially no room to renegotiate the numbers before sending them to voters.

So the rent you are being asked to approve in 2026 is anchored to what the property was thought to be worth in 2017.

An expert appraisal report filed in the pending case by Anthony M. Graziano, MAI, CEO of Integra Realty Resources, puts a number on the gap. According to that report, the 2018 proposal offered $2.15 million in base rent, and the lease now contemplates $2.2 million in 2026 — an increase of roughly two percent across eight years in which actual consumer prices rose far more. The report concludes the lease is below fair market by $609,000, accounting for $7.3 million of positive leasehold value running to the tenant rather than the City. Attorneys for the plaintiffs have publicly stated they intend to prove the lease is 30% below fair market value.

We want to be straight with you about the status of that report. It was prepared by an expert retained by the current marina operator, who has an obvious interest in the outcome. It is contested. The City obtained its own appraisals reaching a different conclusion, and the judge credited those appraisals when she denied the injunction. This has not been tested at trial, and it won't be until 2027.

You do not have to accept anyone's appraisal to see the underlying problem. Ask yourself one question: is Miami waterfront worth the same today as it was in 2017?

If the answer is no, then you are being asked to lock in 2017 pricing until as late as 2101, with no periodic reset to market.

"But it costs taxpayers nothing"

You are going to hear that a lot between now and November, along with the claim that the new rent is more than six times what the current operator pays.

Notice what that comparison actually measures. It compares a proposed rent against what was owed under a marina lease originally signed in 1977 that expired in 2016. It tells you a nearly fifty-year-old lease became a bargain. It tells you nothing about what this waterfront is worth in 2026.

The benchmark is not what the last operator paid. The benchmark is what the property is worth today — and whether a 75-year lease with no market reset captures it.

We hold the same position we held in 2021: no decades-long lock-up of public waterfront on terms the public can't revisit. That was true when a different company was asking. It's true now.

This is not the August stadium vote

In August, City of Miami voters approved a management agreement for the historic Miami Marine Stadium by a wide margin. Some of you voted in that election. It was a different question.

That measure covered event management at the stadium and flex park. The City keeps the deed. The operator contributes toward restoration.

This measure is a ground lease of 27.62 acres of public waterfront for up to 75 years. Different property rights, different duration, different consequences. Approving one says nothing about the other.

If you already voted on Virginia Key in August and assumed the matter was settled — it wasn't. This is a separate decision, and it is the bigger one.

What to do

  1. Confirm your registration. Only registered voters who live inside the City of Miami can vote on this. Coral Gables, Key Biscayne, and unincorporated Miami-Dade cannot. Registration closes October 5.

  2. Request a vote-by-mail ballot by October 22 at 5:00 p.m. If you vote by mail, your ballot must be received by 7:00 p.m. on November 3 — a postmark does not count.

  3. Vote early between October 24 and October 31, or on Election Day, November 3.

  4. Read to the bottom of your ballot. This is a down-ballot question in a busy general election. It is easy to miss. Don't.

  5. Tell your neighbors. Referendums are decided by small numbers of people. In 2021, a Virginia Key marina referendum was decided by roughly 1,500 votes out of about 28,000 cast.

The courts have said what they are going to say before November. Everything now runs through the ballot.

Vote NO.

Sources

  1. Joshua Ceballos, "Miami marina redevelopment will remain on the ballot, but the legal battle isn't over," WLRN Public Media, August 21, 2026. Syndicated in the Miami Herald, August 21, 2026.

  2. Axios Miami, "Virginia Key marina redevelopment heads to Miami voters," August 20, 2026.

  3. Eman Elshahawy, "Marina showdown: Inside the proposed $80M redevelopment of Rickenbacker Marina, Marine Stadium Marina," The Real Deal, August 24, 2026.

  4. Certified ballot summary, City of Miami, November 3, 2026 municipal referendum.

  5. Expert appraisal report of Anthony M. Graziano, MAI, CEO, Integra Realty Resources, filed in Rickenbacker Marina, Inc. v. City of Miami, No. 2026-013392-CA-01 (Fla. 11th Cir.), as reported by WLRN, August 21, 2026.

  6. City of Miami v. Virginia Key LLC, No. 21-22931 (Fla. 11th Cir. 2023), aff'd per curiam, No. 3D23-436 (Fla. 3d DCA July 31, 2024).

  7. Miami-Dade County Supervisor of Elections, official results, City of Miami Referendum 2, August 18, 2026.