Parting gift: Miami commission pushes through Watson Island fire sale

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If you’re going to sell off one of Miami’s last big pieces of waterfront land, why not do it at the very last City Commission meeting of the year — and the very last one for Joe Carollo and Mayor Francis Suarez?

That’s exactly what happened last week, when the Miami City Commission voted 4–1 to approve the $29 million sale of a 3.2-acre parcel on Watson Island, clearing the way for luxury condos on one of the most valuable — and controversial — pieces of city-owned land left on Biscayne Bay.

The timing wasn’t the only thing making eyebrows meet hairlines. The price seems woefully low for one of the last stretches of waterfront property, which has been appraised as high as $342 million.

Read related: Miami blinks on Watson Island deal — kicks can, saves face, still smells fishy

Commissioner Ralph Rosado was the only commissioner to vote no — and he wasn’t being dramatic. He simply asked for a delay until Jan. 22, another independent appraisal, and a better deal for the public.

“This is a really important real estate deal,” Rosado warned his colleagues. “This is historic. And I want to make sure we’re on the right side of history on this.

“I am not a no forever.,” Rosado said, basically pleading for more time. “This is that important, that consequential and that complex.”

History, however, was in a hurry.

None of the other commissioners bit. The deal passed anyway, with commissioners clearly eager to wrap things up before the lights went out on the Suarez-Carollo era.

Commissioner Damian Pardo, the biggest cheerleader, wanted to remind folks that the voters had “approved this by 62%.” But he knows very well that this is not what voters approved when they voted yes last year to sell the land for “fair market value.” He also said that the city would get $2.3 billion in revenue over the next 99 years.

“If we take the present value of that cash flow, it is about $319 million,” Pardo said.

Money mumbo jumbo.

To tamp down concerns about a possible future flip, Commissioner Miguel Angel Gabela talked about  an eleventh-hour safeguard: If the developers sell the land to a third party, the city gets 10% of the resale price minus the $38 million total the developers are paying now (that’s $29 million for the land plus a $9 million public benefits contribution).

In other words, if the land gets flipped for $100 million, the city would pocket an additional $6.2 million. Is it ironclad? No. Is it better than nothing? Barely.

But it gave commissioners just enough political cover to say they’ve “protected taxpayers.”

Just $6 million more for a property they can flip

Outgoing Commissioner Joe Carollo, never one to leave quietly, declared the deal a good one. “We were forced to deal with this property not in the normal way we would have,” he said, referring to the flawed lease, which was signed before any of the current commissioners were sitting on the dais. “You’re limited what you can build there.”

“There’s no question in my mind that we have made the right decision by voting for it,” he said.

That is rich coming from a commissioner whose legacy includes lawsuits, vendettas, and a federal jury verdict for abuse of power.

Read related: Miami’s Watson Island liquidation sale to developers for lowball $25 million

Residents and watchdogs have long called the Watson Island sale a “giveaway,” especially after an appraisal suggested the land could be worth between $257 million and $342 million if unrestricted. That number lit up social media and public comment.

But here’s the catch — and it’s a big one: The city says it is shackled by a deeply flawed ground lease signed in 2001, which independent experts agree severely limits the land’s value. The same appraisal that pegged the land north of $300 million also valued that lease at $28.9 million with the current lease restrictions. Another appraisal put it at $27 million.

Translation: the developers already control the site — cheaply — and have for years.

As one expert bluntly told the Miami Herald, it’s “a bad asset.”

City Manager Art Noriega didn’t sugarcoat it.

“The city gave up a lot of financial opportunity when it signed this lease in 2001,” he said, with a symbolic shrug of the shoulders. “There are a lot of restrictions to the city’s ability to monetize this.”

That’s bureaucratic code for: We can’t undo the past, and this is the box we’re stuck in.

The sale, which is still súper sus, follows a November 2024 voter referendum approving the sale of the land at fair market value, with a minimum price of $25 million. The $29 million price tag clears that bar — barely — before the added $9 million in public benefits for affordable housing and infrastructure (which, by the way, will be matched with $9 million from the city’s coffers).

Technically legal. Procedurally sound. Politically uncomfortable.

Read related: Miami City Commission to consider two Watson Island developments

Was this a rushed giveaway? Or was it City Hall finally cutting loose a bad deal it never should have signed?

The answer, like most things in Miami, is probably both.

But what’s undeniable is the optics: a massive waterfront land sale pushed through on the way out, at a farewell meeting for two of the city’s most controversial figures, over the objections of the lone commissioner asking for patience.

A new mayor and new commissioner in District 3 will inherit the consequences. If Mayor Elect Eileen Higgins is sworn in on Dec. 17, then she’ll have three days to veto.

Welcome to Miami, La Alcaldesa Jr.

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