Billionaire Ken Griffin, who owns well over $1 billion of South Florida residential and commercial real estate, wants to open a private megayacht marina in Miami Beach.
Griffin, through an affiliate, filed a proposal for a 30,000-plus-square-foot marina with four buildings at 120 MacArthur Causeway, a 3.7-acre site on the tip of Terminal Island.
The facility will be exclusively for Griffin and his guests, adding to his massive real estate empire in Miami-Dade County, and further solidifying his hefty investment in South Florida. Griffin moved his Citadel hedge fund and sister company Citadel Securities’ headquarters to Miami’s Brickell from Chicago in 2022 and plans to develop a $2.5 billion bayfront supertall for the firms’ main offices, also in Brickell. The 1.3 million-square-foot project will include a 212-key hotel, spa, fine dining restaurants with 915 seats and more.
Griffin, 56, owns a 308-foot Viva superyacht with interior design by Peter Marino, according to Superyacht Fan.
The Miami Beach Planning Board will vote on a conditional use permit requested for the marina at its Nov. 4 meeting.
Designed by BMA Architects, the project will include a gatehouse at the entrance of the marina with security offices, and a pavilion for crew members with laundry, kitchen, gym with sauna and showers and a “modest” rooftop pool, according to the application. Also, the project will have an operations center with a repair shop and marina staff offices, as well as an owner’s pavilion with a grand seating area, storage spaces and an adjacent pool.
“Reflecting his long-term commitment to Miami, Ken is investing to improve an industrial section of Terminal Island,” a Citadel spokesperson said.
Terminal Island, which juts out from the MacArthur Causeway’s eastbound lanes toward PortMiami, currently has a Florida Power & Light plant, a Miami Beach maintenance facility and a parking garage and ferry terminals servicing the exclusive Fisher Island.
The marina development site previously was owned by the Pérez family’s Related Group, which scrapped its planned office project on the property. Coconut Grove-based Related originally had planned a 34-story, 90-unit condo tower, and then switched plans to a 160,000-square-foot office project that could have reached 75 feet in height.
In 2023, Related sold the property to multifamily developer Lincoln Property Company for $77 million, records show, canceling the office project. State corporate records show that the ownership of the entity One Island Park, which owns the marina development site, was amended in September to substitute Lincoln for people tied to Griffin.
Because the change in ownership was made through the acquisition of the interest in the ownership entity and not through a deed, Griffin’s purchase price for the site is unknown.
According to the South Florida Business Journal, which first reported on Griffin’s proposed marina, the project could host private events during Art Basel or the Formula One Miami Grand Prix.
Forbes pegs Griffin’s net worth at $50.6 billion, making him the 32nd wealthiest person in the world.
In Miami, Griffin paid a record $106.9 million for Adrienne Arsht’s 4-acre Coconut Grove estate at 3031 and 3115 Brickell Avenue in 2022. He also owns residential land in Palm Beach and waterfront properties on Miami Beach’s Star Island.
His Brickell office supertall is planned on a 2.5-acre site at 1201 Brickell Bay Drive, a site Griffin bought for a record $363 million in 2022. As a whole, entities tied to Griffin have paid a total of nearly $670 million for a Brickell assemblage, which totals about 4.2 acres
In the meantime, his firms are leasing space at the 830 Brickell office tower.
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