Miami-Dade wants a new marina at the old Seaquarium. Should voters get a say?
By Jenny Staletovich
October 9, 2026 at 10:47 AM EDT
As plans loomed in the 1990s to hand Miami’s Bicentennial Park over to the cruise industry for a sprawling port terminal, park lovers mounted a simple campaign: Save Our Parks.
In the months leading to a November election and armed with petitions to amend the Miami-Dade County charter, advocates knocked on doors, canvassed shopping centers and even overcame a pounding blow by Hurricane Andrew. Energized by a failed attempt to block speeding Grand Prix race cars in the bayfront park and a sleek tennis stadium in Crandon Park, they collected more than 90,000 signatures. Their ambitious bid passed with nearly 60% of the vote.
READ MORE: Out with the Seaquarium, in with the mega yachts? A new plan for the old marine park
"The public has stuck a big green thumb directly in the eye of the politicians and their developer contributors who have been pouring concrete into our parks," lawyer Dan Paul, who led the effort, told the Miami Herald at the time.
In 1993, park advocates ran this ad in the Miami Herald urging voters to approve a charter amendment requiring voter approval for commercial operations in parks. (656x1168, AR: 0.5616438356164384)
Now, two longtime county residents are pointing to that decades-old victory as proof that voters should decide whether a new privately-operated marina, where a quarter of the slips would accommodate yachts, should be built on county land at the shuttered Seaquarium.
”We're not against redevelopment of the Seaquarium site. It’s that this is public land,” said Gregory Frankel, an attorney and founder of BASE, a business management firm. “It's public park land and the voters should have a meaningful participation in the redevelopment of the site.”
On Sept. 30, Frankel and longtime friend Aaron Stauber, also an attorney and developer, notified the county mayor and attorney that they intend to sue, seeking a “citizen enforcement action” under the charter.
”We're not asking for damages. We're asking for one thing: Just go and put it in front of a public referendum and let the public decide,” said Stauber who, like Frankel, grew up visiting the Seaquarium. Both are former board members at environmental nonprofit Miami Waterkeeper.
In response to questions, a representative for developer David Martin, who won control of the Seaquarium’s remaining lease in bankruptcy proceedings, emailed a statement saying time had run out for a public vote.
A court timeline, the statement said, required “an expedited acquisition of the amended lease, leaving no time for a lengthy referendum process that is not required as a matter of law.”
The statement also said Martin’s plan followed county charter rules.
“The plan was very carefully designed to be consistent with the property’s allowable use, and with Article 7 of the County Charter, which specifically exempts both the Seaquarium and marinas from any referendum requirements,” the statement said.
A closeout hearing on a final bankruptcy plan had been scheduled for Oct. 20, but earlier this month the court postponed the date and extended the deadline for filing a final plan.
After the former owner of the Seaquarium picked Martin to take over the lease in bankruptcy proceedings, he unveiled plans for a revamped Seaquarium that included shops, event space, an aquarium and, lastly, a marina. Martin promised to include a component for education and research. Last December, county commissioners quickly endorsed a new 99-year lease without asking questions.
”Sounds really great actually. We're gonna do educational. And we're gonna make an aquarium on the site,” Stauber said, recalling when he heard about the proposal.
Then in July, WLRN reported details on the marina based on an application submitted by the county to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to approve the marina. The plan includes slips and dry dock storage to accommodate nearly 900 boats at a marina that wraps around the Seaquarium property from Bear Cut to an old boat basin at the park’s western edge.
Plans call for a new marina with wet slips and a dry dock able to accommodate nearly 900 boats. (2592x1728, AR: 1.5)
State environmental regulators raised numerous questions about impacts to surrounding flats, where water can be just a few feet deep. Those flats, according to a new designation by International Union of Conservation Nature also help provide critical habitat for pregnant sharks and their babies.
Friends of Biscayne Bay, which heard about the plans the day after county officials filed their request with the state, has also raised questions, said Laura Reynolds, an advisor to the group.
With space for so many big boats, the group worries seagrass flats and other wildlife in the shallow bay could be damaged.
A map submitted to Miami-Dade County shows boats accessing the marina via channel facing a large seagrass flat. (1224x792, AR: 1.5454545454545454)
In July, the group sent the county a letter signed by more than a dozen residents and nonprofits including Save the Manatee Club, The CLEO Institute and Surfrider asking for, among other things, an independent environmental study. The nonprofit has been holding weekly meetings open to the public.
The county has begun taking steps to rezone the area as a special district to allow the marina. The county’s decades-old Manatee Protection Plan restricts docks and marinas, largely limiting slips for motorized boats to one every 100 feet, unless the operator can prove the slow-moving manatees won’t be harmed. A 1,000-foot wide speed zone to protect manatees now wraps around the site.
“We say, 'Whoa, no way.' This is gonna have 877 boats? They're gonna be parking 200-plus foot [yachts]?” Stauber said. “How come no one knew about this?"
In taking a closer look, he and Frankel say they studied the county charter and decided the new lease and redevelopment of the county site that included a new marina amounted to the kind of makeover voters had in mind when they amended the county charter.
One of those voters was Esta Tishgart, a public school teacher.
"I like our parks to be used for noncommercial, free, educational activities," she told the Herald in 1993 after the vote.
”Our concern is the process. We're not taking a position on the merits of the project itself,” Frankel said. ”Why haven't the voters been more involved? Why haven't the citizens of the county heard more about this, and why is this moving so fast?'"
Having voters have a say, Frankel said, will also increase participation by the public.
"It's automatically going to create more public involvement, more public input and more public awareness,” he said.
In their notice to the county, attorney Darrin Gursky gave the county until Wednesday to respond to the demand or face a lawsuit.
(2750x625, AR: 4.4)
In the months leading to a November election and armed with petitions to amend the Miami-Dade County charter, advocates knocked on doors, canvassed shopping centers and even overcame a pounding blow by Hurricane Andrew. Energized by a failed attempt to block speeding Grand Prix race cars in the bayfront park and a sleek tennis stadium in Crandon Park, they collected more than 90,000 signatures. Their ambitious bid passed with nearly 60% of the vote.
READ MORE: Out with the Seaquarium, in with the mega yachts? A new plan for the old marine park
"The public has stuck a big green thumb directly in the eye of the politicians and their developer contributors who have been pouring concrete into our parks," lawyer Dan Paul, who led the effort, told the Miami Herald at the time.
In 1993, park advocates ran this ad in the Miami Herald urging voters to approve a charter amendment requiring voter approval for commercial operations in parks. (656x1168, AR: 0.5616438356164384)
Now, two longtime county residents are pointing to that decades-old victory as proof that voters should decide whether a new privately-operated marina, where a quarter of the slips would accommodate yachts, should be built on county land at the shuttered Seaquarium.
”We're not against redevelopment of the Seaquarium site. It’s that this is public land,” said Gregory Frankel, an attorney and founder of BASE, a business management firm. “It's public park land and the voters should have a meaningful participation in the redevelopment of the site.”
On Sept. 30, Frankel and longtime friend Aaron Stauber, also an attorney and developer, notified the county mayor and attorney that they intend to sue, seeking a “citizen enforcement action” under the charter.
”We're not asking for damages. We're asking for one thing: Just go and put it in front of a public referendum and let the public decide,” said Stauber who, like Frankel, grew up visiting the Seaquarium. Both are former board members at environmental nonprofit Miami Waterkeeper.
In response to questions, a representative for developer David Martin, who won control of the Seaquarium’s remaining lease in bankruptcy proceedings, emailed a statement saying time had run out for a public vote.
A court timeline, the statement said, required “an expedited acquisition of the amended lease, leaving no time for a lengthy referendum process that is not required as a matter of law.”
The statement also said Martin’s plan followed county charter rules.
“The plan was very carefully designed to be consistent with the property’s allowable use, and with Article 7 of the County Charter, which specifically exempts both the Seaquarium and marinas from any referendum requirements,” the statement said.
A closeout hearing on a final bankruptcy plan had been scheduled for Oct. 20, but earlier this month the court postponed the date and extended the deadline for filing a final plan.
After the former owner of the Seaquarium picked Martin to take over the lease in bankruptcy proceedings, he unveiled plans for a revamped Seaquarium that included shops, event space, an aquarium and, lastly, a marina. Martin promised to include a component for education and research. Last December, county commissioners quickly endorsed a new 99-year lease without asking questions.
”Sounds really great actually. We're gonna do educational. And we're gonna make an aquarium on the site,” Stauber said, recalling when he heard about the proposal.
Then in July, WLRN reported details on the marina based on an application submitted by the county to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to approve the marina. The plan includes slips and dry dock storage to accommodate nearly 900 boats at a marina that wraps around the Seaquarium property from Bear Cut to an old boat basin at the park’s western edge.
Plans call for a new marina with wet slips and a dry dock able to accommodate nearly 900 boats. (2592x1728, AR: 1.5)
State environmental regulators raised numerous questions about impacts to surrounding flats, where water can be just a few feet deep. Those flats, according to a new designation by International Union of Conservation Nature also help provide critical habitat for pregnant sharks and their babies.
Friends of Biscayne Bay, which heard about the plans the day after county officials filed their request with the state, has also raised questions, said Laura Reynolds, an advisor to the group.
With space for so many big boats, the group worries seagrass flats and other wildlife in the shallow bay could be damaged.
A map submitted to Miami-Dade County shows boats accessing the marina via channel facing a large seagrass flat. (1224x792, AR: 1.5454545454545454)
In July, the group sent the county a letter signed by more than a dozen residents and nonprofits including Save the Manatee Club, The CLEO Institute and Surfrider asking for, among other things, an independent environmental study. The nonprofit has been holding weekly meetings open to the public.
The county has begun taking steps to rezone the area as a special district to allow the marina. The county’s decades-old Manatee Protection Plan restricts docks and marinas, largely limiting slips for motorized boats to one every 100 feet, unless the operator can prove the slow-moving manatees won’t be harmed. A 1,000-foot wide speed zone to protect manatees now wraps around the site.
“We say, 'Whoa, no way.' This is gonna have 877 boats? They're gonna be parking 200-plus foot [yachts]?” Stauber said. “How come no one knew about this?"
In taking a closer look, he and Frankel say they studied the county charter and decided the new lease and redevelopment of the county site that included a new marina amounted to the kind of makeover voters had in mind when they amended the county charter.
One of those voters was Esta Tishgart, a public school teacher.
"I like our parks to be used for noncommercial, free, educational activities," she told the Herald in 1993 after the vote.
”Our concern is the process. We're not taking a position on the merits of the project itself,” Frankel said. ”Why haven't the voters been more involved? Why haven't the citizens of the county heard more about this, and why is this moving so fast?'"
Having voters have a say, Frankel said, will also increase participation by the public.
"It's automatically going to create more public involvement, more public input and more public awareness,” he said.
In their notice to the county, attorney Darrin Gursky gave the county until Wednesday to respond to the demand or face a lawsuit.
(2750x625, AR: 4.4)