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Condos eating boat slips- Florida

Yachts, condos eating up boat slips in South Florida
The average boater has a hard time finding a place to dock.
By Robert Nolin
South Florida Sun-Sentinel

May 28, 2005

FORT LAUDERDALE -- Change is in the wind for South Florida boaters: Marinas that occupy high-value waterfront land are being bought out and developed as condos, or transformed into ultra-posh berthings for multimillion-dollar yachts.

The gradual disappearance of dock space is making it harder for the average boater to find a place to tie up. And those places left are becoming ever more expensive.

It's happening Central Florida as well. In the past three years, seven commercial marinas -- with more than 500 slips -- have been sold to private developers in Brevard County.

In South Florida, fewer marinas could slow a billion-dollar marine economy and threaten the very reason many boaters are drawn to the area: easy access to hundreds of miles of fair-weather waterways.

"It's really hard to find dockage," said John Kretschmer, 46, who has owned midsize sailboats in the area for 25 years. "You can't afford it around here. It's pretty hard to find anything under $300 a month."

The marinas, some family-run for generations, have been a colorful and quirky presence in South Florida. They offered safe harbor where salts young and old could jawbone, admire a sailing vessel's lines, compare ports of call or mend their sails and their minds.

Now the old waterfront boathouses are giving way to pastel-hued town houses and condos. That's when they're not being reconfigured to accommodate yachts, one of whose slips could displace a dozen smaller vessels.

"You don't have boatyards like this anymore," said Larry Brown, a welder at Summerfield Boat Works, which has nestled along the New River since 1940. "This is the last of the old mom-and-pop boatyards."

Boating industry experts figure that more than 10 percent of the marinas in Broward and Palm Beach counties are the site of residential developments, have been bought by developers or are being redesigned for yachts.

The decreasing number of marinas and boatyards has snagged the attention of legislators locally and in Tallahassee, who say South Florida is at a crossroads when it comes to its maritime future.

The Legislature this year enacted a law to help preserve diminishing marinas. Palm Beach County has approved a $50 million bond issue to do likewise, and Broward County officials have commissioned a study to define the problem.

The number of registered boats in Florida increased 51 percent from 1987 to 2003, according to a Florida State University study. During that time, however, the number of marinas grew by only one -- from 1,545 to 1,546, the state Department of Environmental Protection reported.

The yacht metamorphosis at several marinas represents a very lucrative aspect of the area's marine economy. More than 1,000 such multimillion-dollar vessels visit the area each year.

But when marinas dedicate space to super vessels, smaller boats get displaced.

"The number of slips available diminishes," said Daniel Yaffe, chairman of the Broward County Marine Advisory Committee. "In the long run, the loser will be the average boater who needs a place to keep his boat."

Robert Nolin is a reporter for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, a Tribune Publishing newspaper.

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