Frequently Asked Questions

On November 3, 2026, City of Miami voters will be asked whether to approve a lease of about 27.62 acres of public waterfront on Virginia Key — the land where Rickenbacker Marina and Marine Stadium Marina sit — to a private company called Virginia Key LLC.

The lease is a 45-year initial term with two 15-year renewals the tenant can trigger unilaterally, for a possible total of 75 years. Virginia Key LLC has committed to a minimum guaranteed rent to the City and to a redevelopment of the marinas that the ballot describes as "approximately $80,000,000" — and this is not even guaranteed. The amount the City will receive is actually less than they receive from the existing marinas.

Our position: Vote NO.

Only registered voters who live inside the City of Miami.

If you live in Coral Gables, Key Biscayne, Coconut Grove (outside city limits), Miami Beach, Doral, Hialeah, or unincorporated Miami-Dade County, you cannot vote on this measure — even though it affects public waterfront that everyone in the region uses.

If you're not sure whether your address is inside the City of Miami, check your voter registration at the Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections website. Your ballot will show this question if you're eligible.

Election Day is Tuesday, November 3, 2026. You have three ways to cast a ballot:

• Vote by mail. Request your ballot by 5:00 p.m. on October 22, 2026. Return it so it is received by the Supervisor of Elections by 7:00 p.m. on November 3. A postmark is not enough — it must arrive by 7:00 p.m.
• Early voting. Miami-Dade runs early voting from October 24 through October 31 (dates may extend). Check the SOE website for locations near you.
• Election Day. Polls are open 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. at your assigned precinct.

The voter registration deadline is October 5, 2026. If you or a neighbor need to register or update your address, do it before then.

Virginia Key LLC is a joint venture between Suntex Marinas, a Dallas, Texas corporation that operates marinas in more than a dozen states, and RCI Marine Group, another out-of-state company. If the referendum passes, they would control 27.62 acres of Miami’s public waterfront for up to 75 years.

A lawsuit filed July 1, 2026 alleges that ownership and operator arrangements have been quietly changed since the original bid was awarded — meaning the company voters approve may not be the company that actually runs the marinas.

Rickenbacker Marina has been locally operated since 1983 by the Melwani family, doing business as Biscayne Marine Partners. It's a Miami business, employing Miami people, serving Miami boaters. Slip rates have remained accessible to working boaters, retirees, and small marine businesses across four decades. Next-door is Marine Stadium Marina, one of the City of Miami’s remaining public marinas.

Five things, and any one of them is a reason to vote NO:

1. It's a 75-year lock-up of public waterfront. The ballot says "45-year initial term with two 15-year renewals" — but those renewals are at the tenant's sole discretion. The City has no power to walk away at 45 years. This locks Miami into terms until roughly 2101.
2. The financial terms are frozen in 2017. A 2023 court order requires the City to use terms from the original 2015–2017 procurement. Those terms cannot be renegotiated to reflect a decade of Miami’s real estate growth. The rent is anchored to a 2017 appraisal. The City and taxpayers will actually lose money in this takeover.
3. The City actually gets LESS money than it makes today. The guaranteed rent under the new lease is less than what the current locally-operated marina already pays the City.
4. The ballot is misleading. A lawsuit filed July 1, 2026 alleges the ballot question voters will see violates Florida law by promising things — the "$80 million investment," the "environmentally sensitive" redevelopment — that don't actually appear as enforceable obligations in the executed lease.
5. Voters already rejected a similar deal in 2021 — 53% to 47%. That earlier version actually had better financial terms for the City than the version now on the ballot. Miami voters have said no to this once. There's no reason to say yes now.

The lawsuit alleges it's not really $80 million — because the number doesn't appear as an enforceable obligation in the executed lease.

The ballot summary promises "approximately $80,000,000 privately funded investment to redevelop existing Rickenbacker and Marine Stadium marinas." But the actual lease contains no enforceable investment covenant, no required construction schedule, and no penalties for underinvestment. According to the complaint, the lease itself says construction plans haven't even been provided, and the conceptual plans can be revised later.

Voters would be asked to approve a headline number that isn't in the contract.

According to the lawsuit — nothing. The ballot promises "environmentally sensitive" redevelopment. The lawsuit alleges the executed lease contains no environmental performance requirements matching that promise.

Virginia Key is one of the most ecologically sensitive parts of Biscayne Bay. If "environmental protection" isn't in the contract, it isn't in the deal.

Yes, effectively. The ballot summary describes it as a "45-year initial term with two 15-year renewals" — which sounds like the City retains an option to end the lease at 45 years. It does not.

The renewals are at the tenant's sole discretion, not the City's. That means the tenant decides whether the lease continues. If the tenant wants to stay for 75 years, they stay for 75 years. The City has no leverage to reopen terms or walk away.

75 years is longer than most Miami residents will be alive. It's longer than most homes stand. It's longer than the marina has existed under any operator.

Absolutely not. A court ordered a referendum — it did not, and cannot, tell voters how to vote.

A 2023 circuit-court ruling ordered the City to hold this referendum on terms from the 2015–2017 procurement. That means the deal on the ballot is legally frozen — the City cannot renegotiate the terms. But voters retain full authority to reject it.

If a majority votes NO on November 3, the referendum fails. The lease does not go into effect. The City goes back to the drawing board and starts over with a new competitive process, current market terms, and — hopefully — a fresh appraisal that reflects what Miami waterfront is actually worth in 2026, not 2017.

A NO vote is the only way voters get a say in this deal.

No. Voting NO does not shut the marinas down. The current locally-operated marinas have run successfully for over 40 years and continue to operate. What voting NO does is force the City to restart the process — and this time with terms that reflect 2026 reality, not 2017 assumptions.

Supporters frame this as "take the $80 million deal, or get nothing." That's a false choice. If Miami waterfront is genuinely worth developing (and it is), the City can attract better proposals — with real enforceable investment commitments, current market rents, and competitive terms — through a fresh, non-court-forced process.

Commissioners had to place the referendum on the ballot. They did not have to approve the specific misleading ballot language they chose, and no court has reviewed or approved that language.

On June 11, 2026, Commissioners themselves said on the record that they didn't fully understand what they were voting on, that the deal was "10 years old," and that absent legal pressure from the City Attorney, they would have voted the deal down that same day. One Commissioner said openly: "vote this thing down today and say, new contract for everybody."

The lawsuit filed July 1 challenges whether the coercion warnings the City Attorney used to pressure Commissioners were even legally sound. Voters can and should reach their own conclusion — regardless of what any lawyer told any elected official.

Read the fine print. According to the lawsuit, the lease allows the tenant to modify parking arrangements at its sole discretion. That's the opposite of a guaranteed public benefit. The ballot lists "public parking" as if it's a firm commitment — the lease treats it as flexible.

The same is true of the other "public benefit" claims in the ballot: they appear as headline promises, but the actual lease reportedly contains no enforceable requirements to back them up.

The 2021 referendum defeated a version of this deal that would have benefited the current operator's competitor. In that vote, Miami voters said no to a 75-year lease of public waterfront on principle — regardless of who would run it. The 2026 version is different terms and different backers, but the principle is the same:

Miami’s public waterfront should not be locked up for 75 years to any private operator on terms voters weren't allowed to shape.

This campaign is coalition-broad. Neighborhood groups, marine trades, environmental voices, small business owners, and residents across political affiliations — including many who have no personal stake in who operates the marinas — are voting NO because it's a bad deal for the public.

Visit the Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections website and use the voter lookup tool. Enter your name and date of birth. Your record will show your registration status, precinct, and current address on file.

If you've moved since you last registered, update your address before October 5, 2026 — the registration deadline for the November election.

Two ways:

• Online at the Miami-Dade SOE website. Fastest and easiest.
• By phone at the Miami-Dade Elections Department.

The deadline to request a VBM ballot is October 22, 2026 at 5:00 p.m. Ballots are typically mailed to voters starting in early to mid October.

Important: your returned ballot must be received by the SOE by 7:00 p.m. on November 3 — a postmark does not count. If you're mailing late, drop it off at an early voting location or the elections office directly.

Early voting runs from October 24 through October 31, 2026. Any registered City of Miami voter can vote at any early voting site in Miami-Dade County. Check the SOE website for the list of sites, which typically opens 2–3 weeks before early voting begins.

Election Day voting must be at your assigned precinct. Your precinct is shown on your voter registration record.

Yes. November 3, 2026 is a statewide general election, including the race for Florida Governor and other state and local contests. Don't skip down the ballot — vote every race, and vote NO on the Virginia Key marina referendum. If you leave that question blank, it counts as if you didn't vote at all on this measure.

Save Our Marinas is a resident-led campaign organized to keep the Rickenbacker and Marine Stadium marinas locally operated, affordable, and truly public — and to keep the surrounding Virginia Key waters open to the public. In addition to boaters, paddle boarders and kayakers of all ages use this public waterfront. Even those who don't get in the water stop by on foot or by bicycle to enjoy the public views of the Bay.

We're organizing across neighborhoods, marine trades, small business owners, environmental groups, and residents who care about how Miami’s public waterfront is managed for the next 75 years.