A Sworn Expert Just Told the Court: The City’s Marina Numbers Don’t Hold Up

On July 17, 2026 — six days before Miami’s ballot language deadline — attorneys challenging the Virginia Key marina referendum filed a set of exhibits in Miami-Dade Circuit Court (Rickenbacker Marina, Inc. v. City of Miami, Case No. 2026-013392-CA-01). Among them is Exhibit K: (link below) a declaration signed under penalty of perjury by Charles E. Badell, MAI, Managing Director of Integra Realty Resources – Miami/Caribbean, a Florida state-certified general appraiser who has been qualified as an expert witness in the circuit courts of both Miami-Dade and Broward counties.

You can read the full filing linked below. Here is what he swore to, in plain language.

Four findings, under oath

1. The City’s appraisers weren’t given what they needed. Badell reviewed both appraisals the City commissioned in early 2026 to support this lease. His sworn conclusion: the appraisers “were not provided with the necessary documents and materials” to properly value the deal. The underlying court motion goes further, alleging one appraiser was never even given a rent roll for the existing operations — and that neither was given the actual lease.

2. The waterfront is worth far more than it was when these terms were set. Badell swears that Miami waterfront and marina property values have increased significantly over the last ten years. The financial terms of this lease were set in 2016–2017. The lease would lock those economics in for 45 years, with renewals stretching to 75 — with no periodic reset to market value. Ever.

3. The marina you already have out-earns the projections. This is the finding that should stop every voter. Badell reviewed a recent rent roll for the existing Rickenbacker Marina — the locally run facility operating today, before any redevelopment — and found it is achieving boat-storage rates materially higher than what the City’s appraisals project for the proposed new development.

Read that again: the current marina’s real-world income beats the paper projections used to justify handing the property over for three-quarters of a century.

4. Fair market rent is higher than the City’s appraisals concluded. His bottom-line expert opinion: the true fair market rent for this property exceeds what both City-commissioned appraisals concluded — and those appraisals, in his professional judgment, “lack sufficient information to provide credible results.”

The five-year rule — in the City’s own appraisal Buried in the City’s own Blake appraisal is this sentence: rental rates for ground leases “are typically adjusted every five years in the market.” Badell’s rebuttal applies the same professional standard, noting that a contract signed more than five years ago is not considered reflective of current market terms.

Hold those two statements next to this deal: terms set nearly a decade ago, no market adjustment for up to 75 years. By the standard the City’s own appraiser describes, this lease would be out of date before the paint dried — fifteen times over.

Badell’s review also found the appraisals leaned on the wrong comparables: publicly operated, taxpayer-subsidized marinas that deliberately price below private-market rates — including one comparison marina 47 miles from Virginia Key, thirteen miles past the nearest population center. Using subsidized public rates to set the “market value” of prime private-operated Miami waterfront pushes the number one direction: down.

Why this matters legally This isn’t just a numbers fight. The Miami City Charter prohibits the City from leasing its property without “a return to the city of fair market value,” verified by independent appraisals — that’s a condition the law places before a deal like this can even reach voters. The pending motion argues the City never satisfied it.

And Florida law holds ballot language to a strict accuracy standard. Courts have repeatedly blocked measures that mislead voters — including right here: in Let Miami Beach Decide v. City of Miami Beach, 120 So. 3d 1282 (Fla. 3d DCA 2013), the Third District struck a defective waterfront-lease ballot question, and in Florida Ass’n of Realtors v. Orange County, 350 So. 3d 115 (Fla. 5th DCA 2022), the court reversed a trial judge who let a flawed measure stay on the ballot. As the pending motion puts it, no public interest is served by asking voters to decide a misleading question. This is the same court file, remember, where Miami’s own City Attorney admitted on June 11 that no court ever reviewed this ballot language — it was negotiated with the developer.

The bottom line Miami voters rejected a 75-year lease of this same public waterfront in 2021. This measure is back not because the public asked for it, but because a court ordered the City to put the old deal — on its old terms — to a vote. Now a sworn expert says even the appraisals meant to bless those terms understate what our waterfront is worth.

A NO vote doesn’t close the marinas. It keeps them operating, keeps them public, and sends the City back to negotiate a deal priced at today’s market — not 2017’s. Read the sworn declaration yourself below. Then vote NO on November 3.