Deed Restrictions: Marine Stadium and Basin lands

What has kept Virginia Key’s vast open spaces and waterfront lands from being turned into hotel rows or Bayside Marketplaces?

The answer may lie in the deed restrictions set when the lands were conveyed to the City of Miami from the State of Florida or Miami-Dade County. Consider it a kind of people’s bill of public property rights.

Three key parcels - the Marine Stadium and surrounding basin, the historic Virginia Key Beach Park (“Old County Park”) and the secluded North Point -- come with restrictions that limit uses.

Let's take a look at the Marine Stadium Basin first.

A deed dated March 12, 1963 between “Dade County”  and the “City of Miami” states:

This deed of conveyance is made upon the express condition that the land hereby conveyed shall be perpetually used and maintained for the operation of a Marine Stadium and allied purposes only, and in the event the use of said land for such purposes shall be abandoned, then in such event the title to said land shall revert to the grantor herein.”

The “grantor” in this case is Miami-Dade County, which theoretically could demand all the land back. Afterall, it could be argued the City of Miami “abandoned” the operation of the Marine Stadium when it shuttered it after Hurricane Andrew in 1992.

But with the Miami-Dade County Commission voting April 6 to provide $3 million in seed money towards restoration of the stadium, maybe all the intervening years of neglect will be forgiven and forgotten when the stadium hosts its first comeback concert.

As to the surrounding land, what constitutes “allied purposes” is apparently still up for discussion, as the City of Miami’s previously proposed master plan called for shopping areas, expanded marina and boat storage operations and new restaurants.

Some city officials are hoping that as long as it has the name "marine" appended to it, it fits the bill, as in a "marine-themed" shopping center. Who knows, maybe there's even a "marine-themed" dog park proposal out there.

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