Miami-Dade plans mega-marina at old Seaquarium site, faces scrutiny
Miami-Dade County and David Martin want a 325-slip marina behind the Seaquarium, aiming it at megayachts on Virginia Key.
Miami-Dade County and developer David Martin have asked state regulators to approve a 325-slip marina behind the shuttered Miami Seaquarium, a project that could become the county’s largest. The plan would turn county-owned park land at 4400 Rickenbacker Causeway into a major boating hub for luxury vessels and megayachts.
The application calls for a dry stack that could hold another 500 boats, nearly 90 slips for yachts longer than 80 feet, floating docks, finger piers that would extend more than halfway across the channel separating Virginia Key from fragile flats, a wave break that doubles as a fishing pier, and a fuel dock covering more than 19,000 square feet. Florida Department of Environmental Protection regulators have already sent back a six-page list of questions about wetland impacts, alternatives that could reduce damage to seagrass and wildlife, possible coral loss, dredging, sewage pump-outs, fuel spills and how boat traffic would work in the narrow channel. The scrutiny lands in Biscayne Bay, where the flats that once supported sea turtles, bonefish, lobsters and wading birds have fallen by 70% to 90% in the last decade, Friends of Biscayne Bay says. Friends of Biscayne Bay puts the Biscayne Bay Aquatic Preserves, established in 1974, at about 64,607 submerged acres. DEP’s voluntary Clean Marina Program encourages best-management practices beyond basic regulation, and its Clean Vessel Act materials require public access to pumpout equipment for marina facilities seeking sewage-disposal grant support.
The Seaquarium site has been public land from the start. Miami-Dade first leased the property on March 9, 1954, to Marine Exhibit Corporation for a family-oriented tourist attraction that included an aquarium. The county later advanced a new lease transaction in committee as Terra Group moved toward a $22.5 million bankruptcy-related deal to take over the Seaquarium lease, and Terra’s broader vision for the 38-acre Virginia Key property has included restaurants and a new aquarium without marine mammals.
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