Our family has operated Rickenbacker Marina since 1983. Today I am proud to serve as its president. I’ve worked as a dockhand, driven forklifts, restored native habitat, and reinvested most of our earnings back into this City-owned property. We have faithfully served the local and tourist communities and have paid the City of Miami tens of millions of dollars in rent over the course of our lease, and we currently share far more revenue per acre with the City than what the referendum offers. However, one of our proudest accomplishments is bringing you Gramps Getaway. 

We are “Real Miami” and we’ve been through it all together: devastating hurricanes, economic recessions, you name it.  

Now we face a political campaign to preserve and protect the Miami we love. That is why I am urging City of Miami voters to VOTE NO on Miami Referendum 3 on or before November 3. As a native Miamian, this is personal. 

Miami Referendum 3 asks voters to approve a 75-year lease of 27 acres of public waterfront to a private-equity-backed out-of-state developer with no connection to our community. Three things about this deal make it a “VOTE NO”: the 2017 below-market terms being offered; the displacement of hundreds of middle-class families and dozens of small businesses; and the dredging and irreversible damage to Biscayne Bay. 

The lease term is 75 years, not the 45 that has been widely repeated. The “guaranteed” $2.2 million rent has no escalation beyond CPI for the life of the lease, which means the City never shares the growth upside. The “$204 million” figure being promoted is spread across 75 years. 

The outdated lease terms come from a 2017 bid. Property values and rents have since doubled. A 2026 appraisal of a 2017 deal tells you exactly what you’d expect: the City would get far better terms if it went to market today. Rickenbacker offered substantially larger investments and far more rent in both 2017 and 2021. Instead, this referendum would handcuff the City to a decade-old deal for the next 75 years, at the expense of taxpayers who could see those dollars go to neighborhood improvements, transit, and other priorities. 

The City currently nets far more on the 27-acre property than what is proposed in the referendum: approximately $2 million in rent from Rickenbacker — beyond our base rent, we share 15% of all marina revenues and 40% of sublease income — plus approximately $1 million in net income from the adjacent City-run dry stack. Compare that with the referendum’s

6%, with numerous reductions allowed. Miami taxpayers are being asked to trade a proven, above-market return for a below-market one, and call it a win. 

The deal doesn’t just shortchange taxpayers. It displaces hundreds of middle-class families across two public marinas and dozens of local small businesses, including our tenant Gramps Getaway, run by my friend Adam Gersten. The proponents now say “Gramps can stay.” Borrowing the Gramps name to reassure voters, just as they have borrowed the phrase “Save Virginia Key,” is nothing more than a campaign tactic. There is no real written offer or agreement. 

Then there is the Bay itself. Virginia Key is in the heart of Biscayne Bay, where fragile marine habitat is already under threat. This proposal would require extensive dredging of the bay bottom and shoreline that we have spent decades restoring. We must protect the existing habitat, not bury it under more development. 

Not all the referenced delay is Rickenbacker’s doing. Since 2016, dozens of City officials, across different commission terms, have reviewed this proposal and reached the same conclusion – reject the deal. Throughout, we have kept operating, reinvesting, paying fair market rent, and stand ready to invest under a new agreement on far better terms than the ones on the current ballot. I will show anyone who asks the lease, the appraisal, and the financials. 

VOTE NO on City of Miami Referendum 3 on or before November 3. Protect our taxpayers. Preserve our public waterfront.  

Aabad Melwani is a Miami native, licensed attorney, and the second-generation owner of Rickenbacker Marina on Virginia Key. He is a co-founder of Preserve and Protect Miami (preserveandprotect.miami).