Developer: Watson Island marina will start on time
The developer of the stalled Island Gardens yachting resort on Miami's Watson Island has repaid $100,000 in back rent for the city-owned site and vowed to start construction on a luxury marina there before a February deadline.
In his first interview since facing a default notice from Miami earlier this summer, Mehmet Bayraktar said he lost a major financial backer in the retail and resort complex. But the CEO of Flagstone Development said he felt confident he can hold onto the lender that has agreed to fund a $31 million “mega-yacht'' marina on the site, where boats as large as football fields could tie up for the evening.
“It's there,'' Bayraktar said of the financing deal for the marina. “But we basically have to redo the numbers.''
Bayraktar's interview in the posh but idle Island Gardens sales center shed new light on how this year's economic crisis rattled a $640 million project endorsed in a 2001 city referendum and years behind schedule.