With time running out on its current lease, the Coconut Grove Sailing Club is seeking to negotiate a new agreement with the City of Miami as it prepares to celebrate its 80th anniversary on the water as a beacon for sailors and community life.
On a recent breezy Saturday afternoon, Telmo Basterra and Beka Schiff geared up for their regular weekend practice run on their 14-foot racing sailboat.
The duo launched their sleek vessel at the Coconut Grove Sailing Club (CGSC), a nonprofit organization that also operates a restaurant and event space at 2990 South Bayshore Drive.
Since 1946, the sailing club has catered to boaters who prefer taking to the high seas with wind power instead of horsepower. In recent years, the club has served as a community gathering spot as well, and as a watering hole for locals.
“Everyone here is serious about sailing,” Basterra told the Spotlight. “When I first came here eight years ago, the people were so welcoming. It felt like home. I’ve been coming regularly ever since then.”
Schiff echoed her boatmate: “There’s a lot of extremely good competitive sailors who are members and have sailed from here for many, many years. It’s very community driven.”
After decades of providing sailors and non-sailing locals with an anchoring spot, however, CGSC is facing an uncertain future.
The club’s leadership has begun laying the groundwork for a new lease with the City of Miami, which owns the waterfront land where CGSC sits.
The club’s current lease expires next year and some longtime club members are leery of city leaders who may seek to turn the property over to commercial developers offering better profit margins.
“Lease negotiations are always a tough issue,” said Joe Logan, the 57-year-old director of the CGSC’s youth program who has been a club member since his teenage years. “It’s always about the money.”
Alyn Pruett, a longtime member of CGSC’s board, is optimistic the club can secure a new long-term agreement even though negotiations have yet to begin.
“We met with the real estate department director a year-and-a-half ago,” Pruett said. “We talked about what we want to do and what the city wants us to do.
“We are moving along. We have been an established part of the waterfront for 79 years, and hopefully we can continue that.”
When negotiations begin, the talks will focus in part on improvements to the existing property. “We know the city will want capital improvements,” Pruett said. “We think the primary one we’re going to have to deal with involves combating sea level rise.”
Andrew Frey, the director of Miami’s Department of Real Estate and Asset Management (DREAM), referred questions to city spokesperson Orlando Rodriguez.
“The city has had conversations with the sailing club about draft terms for a lease extension,” Rodriguez said. “We have not received any expression of interest from any other parties.”
Miami District 2 Commissioner Damian Pardo, whose district includes Coconut Grove, hasn’t heard any rumblings that would undermine the CGSC’s bid for a new lease.
“We have not heard about developer interest,” Pardo said via text. “But we are very supportive of a renewed lease to the club that allows them to upgrade and update the facility for the future.”
A Tight-Knit Community
When Logan’s mother joined the sailing club in 1979, he didn’t imagine the non-motorized boat marina and the two-story building at the edge of Peacock Park would become a permanent fixture in his life.
“My sister and I spent our childhood and teenage years here in the early ’80s,” Logan said. “Those were the drug-dealing years in this crazy town. My mom knew that this sailing club would be a safe and positive environment for us.”
In the years since, Logan has made a career of sailing, as a yacht captain and sailing coach. Last year, he took over CGSC’s youth program after a three-year stint as coach of the Ransom Everglades sailing team.
Since Logan first joined the club, the organization has more than tripled in size, growing from roughly 400 members to more than 1,500 today.
“When I was a kid, the club was a little more stuffy,” he said. “Now, we are open to the public and you don’t have to join to sail from here or enroll your kids in the youth programs.”
Beyond mentoring young sailors and providing a mooring spot for sailing veterans, CGSC is embedded in the Grove’s social fabric and its economy.
The winter sailing season serves as an economic boon as thousands of sailing aficionados visit the Grove to either participate or watch regattas. The club regularly hosts community events as well, usually at no charge, and has served as a festive haven for community members celebrating personal life achievements.
Sean Connett, a 59-year-old past club commodore, held his wedding reception at the club. “It made sense to my wife and I that we celebrated our marriage at the club,” Connett said. “That is where most of my friendships formed.”
Despite selling his sailboat years ago, Connett is still a regular at the CGSC’s bar. “I get to talk to people that like the things that I like,” he said. “It’s what makes me happy.”
Pruett joined the sailing club in 2003 when he and his wife purchased a 31-foot sailboat.
“My son and daughter had taken sailing lessons at the club,” Pruett recalled. “Once they had grown up and moved away from home, my wife and I started thinking about activities we could do together. So, we bought a sailboat.”
He joined the CGSC board in 2005, serving stints as rear commodore, vice commodore and commodore – the equivalent of a board’s secretary, vice president and president.
“We didn’t realize how strong the sailing community was at the time we joined,” Pruett said. “Some people like to race. Some people like to day sail and have an afternoon party on the water. My wife and I like to go somewhere. Boca Chita Key is a favorite spot.”
The Club’s Current Lease
For much of the early 2000s, the club operated on a month-to-month arrangement under the terms of an expired lease that required $30,000 in annual rent and a 7 percent share of club revenues, which includes membership dues, sailing program fees and sales at the club’s restaurant, The Grove’s Nest, city records show.
In 2011, the Miami City Commission approved a new five-year lease requiring CGSC to pay the city $70,000 in annual rent and a 10 percent share of club revenues.
Since 2016, the city has authorized two five-year renewals with the last one set to expire in 2026.
When CGSC was negotiating the current lease 14 years ago, then-Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado initially wanted the city to seek competitive bids, Logan said.
“I remember him asking why the sailing community should get to enjoy this property for such a small amount of rent,” Logan said. “He complained that the city could get the same amount of rent that we paid annually in one month from a bid developer that would build a restaurant here.”
Pruett, who was commodore at the time, did not specifically recall Regalado’s opposition, but he acknowledged that “there were some interests who thought that the sailing club should become a private enterprise,” and even suggested redeveloping the property into a condominium. “There were a lot of crazy ideas out there at the time,” Pruett said. “I have not heard any this time around.”
In addition to agreeing to pay the city more rent, CGSC also agreed to a major capital improvement project that entailed installing a new mooring field resistant to hurricane winds and more environmentally friendly, Pruett said.
The mooring field can accommodate 175 sailboats, and spaces are available to anyone, not just club members, on a first-come, first-served basis.
“We did that within the first five years,” Pruett said.
When negotiations with the city begin, the CGSC is going to present a proposal to rebuild the club’s seawall by making it higher to protect the property, Pruett said.
At present, the city is waiting for two appraisals for the club property that should be completed by the end of this month, Pruett said. The appraisals will provide a baseline for how much rent the sailing club should pay, he explained.
“Our hope is that we can get in front of the City Commission by the fall of this year,” he added. “We want to sneak in after the budget process in September, but before the end of the calendar year.”
Basterra, the professional sailor, is not familiar with City Hall politics, but he believes the CGSC plays a vital role in keeping the sailing community alive in South Florida, not just Coconut Grove.
“This place is not set up like a private sailing club,” Basterra said. “I wanted a place where the community is all about sailing and going out on the water to have a good time. I found that here.”
