Watson Island super-yacht marina to open by year’s end

Looking for a place to park your mega-yacht?

Fear not: A new

marina on Watson Island designed to hold 50 yachts up to 550 feet long

will open in time for the first week of Art Basel in early December,

developer Flagstone Property Group said Tuesday.

The deep-water marina is part of a planned, mixed-use

development called Island Gardens that has drawn criticism from locals

concerned about traffic. The approximately $1 billion project will

include two luxury hotels, a residential building, upscale restaurants

and a luxury shopping center, developers say, although they are still

working to acquire financing for the residential and retail components.

Those portions of the project are scheduled to open in 2017 and 2018.

Publicly

owned Watson Island, connected to the beach and downtown by the

MacArthur Causeway and home to the Miami Children’s Museum, also sports a

seaplane base and a heliport that provide a link to the Caribbean and

nearby airports. The new marina will have its own customs and

immigration office.

Flagstone founder Mehmet Bayraktar said the project will stimulate economic activity and generate tax revenue for the city.

“The

greatest cities have all kinds of people from all walks of life and all

income levels,” Bayraktar said. “That’s what makes them great cities.

You need somebody to pay the bills.”

Bayraktar said many of the yachts will be charters with weekly rates starting at $50,000 and going as high as $500,000.

“You want these people shopping in your city and bringing their friends to visit,” Bayraktar said.

He also announced several firms that would handle work on the project.

The

architectural firm Nichols Brosch Wurst Wolfe & Associates will

design the master plan. Coastal Construction Group of South Florida will

handle construction. And Cervera Real Estate will sell the residential

units, which will have an unusual twist: Buyers will have the option to

purchase the units for only part of the year.

“I wouldn’t call it a

timeshare,” said Alicia Cervera Lamadrid, the firm’s managing partner.

“It’s like buying a condo, just not for twelve months. You own it when

you use it.”

Voters originally approved the development in a 2001

referendum but construction didn’t begin until 2014. Developers blamed

the delay on 9/11 and the economic downturn.

The project hasn’t been popular with some neighbors. A judge recently dismissed a lawsuit brought by a group of Venetian island residents trying to

stop construction. The plaintiffs, who argued the project would cause

traffic jams near their neighborhood, have appealed.