The Virginia Key Marina Operator Who Lost And Refuses To Leave – JP
The public pays for delay while questions about the Biscayne Bay and Gramps Getaway’s political ties demand answers.
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Guest post by Isabella Rodriguez
Miami, Florida — The City of Miami’s waterfront is not Aabad Melwani’s inheritance. His father acquired a public marina leasehold in 1983 located in Virginia Key. The family acquired a business arrangement, not ownership of our land. Melwani’s teams lost the first redevelopment competition and lost again in 2017, yet his operation remains. City agreements, bid challenges and lawsuits kept the incumbent in place while the winning proposal stalled. In Miami, apparently, losing comes with an extended-stay package. Judge Alan Fine found “favoritism” and “personal preference” in the City’s rejection of the winning bid. City Hall appealed using its own attorneys and lost. Taxpayers got to fund the defense of favoritism benefiting a losing bidder.
The delay had a price. Officials imposed an additional $100,000 in monthly rent to compensate for City revenue lost during the bid dispute; the operator disputed owing it. Judge Fine’s order identified the RCI-Suntex proposal as more profitable for the City. Today, the proposal awaiting voters guarantees rent starting at $2.2 million a year, with increases, plus 6 percent of gross revenues. Millions in proposed annual public revenue remain tied to a redevelopment that has yet to begin. Meanwhile, Melwani and Gramps Getaway owner Adam Gersten sued to block the referendum. Their injunction request failed. The losing bidder keeps operating, and the public keeps waiting. Quite an arrangement, if you are the losing bidder.
The waterfront deserves the same scrutiny as the money. Melwani’s website describes Biscayne Bay as a resource that should remain “pristine” and boasts of responsible stewardship. A video shows a man cleaning a boat, then follows the draining water straight into Biscayne Bay. Wash water entering the Biscayne Bay demands an explanation. The concern extends beyond one boat: rain can carry oil, grease and other residue from work surfaces along a drainage route into the water. EPA guidance identifies that marina runoff as a pollution risk. How many years has runoff from this Virginia Key marina’s work areas been draining straight into the bay? What catches it before it reaches the water? Protecting Biscayne Bay should be a condition of doing business here.
Boat cleaning and the drainage route, as described by the provider.
A second image, shows concrete poured over rocks at the bay’s edge. Who authorized it? What permits covered it? What was done to protect the shoreline during that work? These questions belong at the center of the operator’s stewardship record. The public owns this waterfront and has every right to demand the drainage records, shoreline approvals and a clear account of what has been done there. An operator seeking continued control should have those answers ready. Instead not only have residents not received answers, dissidents have faced harassment for asking questions and raising concerns.
The public also deserves to know what the Gramps name has accommodated. Gramps Getaway is an open-air restaurant in Virginia Key near the marina. It has long been a safe haven and common meeting place for the Miami Democratic Socialists of America. Openly advertised gatherings to meet prospective members and discuss organizing. One DSA post documents tabling and voter registration at a show. Recruitment, organizing and voter outreach, all under the Gramps name. That political history follows the brand and its owner into this waterfront fight. Gramps Getaway itself is a recent arrival: it began a soft opening around New Year’s Eve 2023, with its opening covered in February 2024. Less than three years here, and its owner is already suing to block the proposal for the property’s future. His interest is keeping a business arrangement that benefits him.
Thomas Kennedy, organizer for DSA in Miami, gives that history a name and a role. He is a former DSA Chairman and Bernie Sanders organizer. In February 2022, Kennedy posted about hosting Congressional candidate Nina Turner with Miami progressives at Gramps. The venue’s recurring place in this political circle is documented. In a city shaped by families who fled communist Cuba, accommodating socialist recruitment deserves a forceful response. Miami’s history is not a decorative backdrop for a bar brand. Businesses that provide a gathering place for those organizers should expect scrutiny and rejection from residents who take that history seriously.
Dismissing Suntex Marinas as some out-of-state marina outfit requires ignoring its record. The company reports more than 100 marinas nationally, including 34 in Florida. Miami-Dade approved transfers of Haulover and Crandon marina agreements to Suntex affiliates. Miami Beach reported lease discussions with Suntex and Terra. Its redeveloped Las Olas Marina opened in 2024, with new docks, seawalls, restaurants and amenities. South Florida already knows this company and has seen it build. Its Dallas address is a thin argument against that experience. The incumbent’s record deserves considerably more attention than the replacement’s mailing address.
The new proposal commits roughly $80 million in private redevelopment, including promenades, restaurants and green space. Miami has an opportunity to build a waterfront residents will remember with pride. Instead, the losing bidder keeps operating, the promised public return remains stalled, and questions about drainage and shoreline work demand answers. Gramps’ owner brings a documented history of accommodating socialist organizers into his fight to preserve his place there. Taken together, this is an outrageous record of private interests pressing their claims on a public asset. Miami deserves revenue, access and protection of the bay. It owes no family an inheritance of its waterfront.
We must vote “YES” on City of Miami Proposition 3 (Rickenbacker and Marine Stadium Marinas on Virginia Key), and claim back the public land that’s been hijacked by Melwani and his DSA associates.