A major redevelopment plan for the Tierra Verde Marina in Florida has been withdrawn following community opposition amid concerns about the project’s scale.
Greenleaf Capital, which owns the seven-acre property, located on an island near the entrance of Tampa Bay, confirmed that it pulled its application to reconsider elements such as building height and overall intensity.
In a statement issued on 21 November 2025, the project team said: “Greenleaf Capital has voluntarily withdrawn its current application for the proposed marina redevelopment on Tierra Verde in order to revisit the project’s height and intensity. This direction reflects what we heard clearly during multiple resident and community association meetings. While it was apparent the property was going to remain a marina, the most concerning issues were the height and number of boat storage units.”
The company had sought to transform the decades-old marina and the surrounding commercial area with a mixed set of facilities. The original plans outlined two construction phases that would have replaced the retail plaza, gas station and existing storage building with new marine-related uses. The proposal included a marina office, a harbour house, ground-level parking, expanded dry racks, a public fuelling station, street-level shops, a restaurant with upper-floor seating, and a third-floor bar.
The second construction phase would have removed the current storage barn and further increased accommodation for boats. The combined work was valued at roughly $32.7m.
The redevelopment would also have more than doubled the number of dry boat stacks. The site currently holds 64 wet slips and roughly 314 dry spaces in a building about 40ft tall. Greenleaf’s plan called for a shift to 548 racks during the first stage and, later, a total of 711. At full buildout, it would have created one of the USA’s largest open-rack facilities, supported by several storage towers approaching 90ft.
Supporters of the proposal argued that storms such as Hurricanes Helene and Milton have damaged docks throughout the region, increasing the need for reinforced dry storage across Pinellas County, which has tens of thousands of registered boats.
Small businesses that once occupied the plaza had already left, having been told their leases would not be renewed while the proposal was under review. Several of these operators had been based there for many years, and their departure also meant the loss of the island’s only fuel station capable of serving trailered vessels and recreational vehicles.
Greenleaf’s representatives say they had already made adjustments in response to ‘feedback’, including changes to the restaurant layout intended to limit sound travel toward nearby homes. Former St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman, now acting as a spokesperson for Greenleaf, said before the withdrawal that critics had been given misinformation.
“There’s a lot of information that’s unfortunately come out about this project that isn’t accurate,” he told WTSP before the plans were halted, adding that the company believed the updated design could provide benefits for the area, including reducing traffic.
“They’ve tried to be sensitive to what the community has said, but at the same time, they’ve also tried to balance their rights of running a business and trying to provide something that the community clearly needs,” he said.
Despite these changes, resistance intensified. A resident-led group, Tierra Verde Next, argued that the proposed scale was unsuitable for an area close to housing and raised questions about potential environmental effects. The organisation also said that community engagement had not been adequate. Its members opposed the height of the storage towers and the number of racks proposed.
Residents and visitors had organised meetings, created petitions, and prepared for a city hearing that had been scheduled for early December. Around 3,000 people signed a petition, and large crowds gathered at a local church to coordinate their response. Many residents had also raised concerns about traffic, wildlife and broader effects on the island.
The redevelopment plan was slated to go before St. Petersburg’s Development Review Commission on 3 December 2025 — a meeting that could have initiated a lengthy appeal process regardless of the outcome.
Although the application has been withdrawn, Greenleaf can resubmit revised plans. Any future proposal would still require approval from the city of St. Petersburg, which annexed part of Tierra Verde, including the marina property, in 2014.
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