It’s back to the drawing board – literally – for Marathon’s Quay property, according to direction given to staff by the Marathon City Council at its Oct. 24 workshop.
Originally purchased in 2018, the property was headed for a redesign following an extensive public input process throughout 2020 and 2021. But with an exploding vacation rental population and the continued growth of the Keys’ boating community, often resulting in a line of trailers extending onto U.S. 1, as well as limited options for installing new ramps to reduce congestion, councilmen Lynn Landry, Kenny Matlock and Jeff Smith said they’d like to explore the feasibility of adding a second boat ramp to the property – eschewing some or all of the original park concept on the site.
“I’m driving this simply because when we designed this park, we didn’t have the problem we have now,” said Landry. “If we redesign it now, it might be two years down the road we have boat ramps. If we don’t … it might be 10 years down the road before we see another boat ramp, because we don’t have any other properties other than this one to add boat ramps to.”
Smith echoed Landry’s sentiments, asking for “a pause” on the park while exploring other options, while Matlock panned the inefficiency of the site’s current ramp, frequently clogged by inexperienced trailer drivers attempting a 90 degree turn to a vehicle’s passenger side from a narrow entryway. Preliminary sketches of a redesign provided to the council included a double-wide boat ramp with an additional 14 boat trailer parking spaces.
The pivot was met with clear concern from city staff, who bristled at pausing the work in progress from paid consultants for a redesign, as well as the possible loss of $844,800 in grant funding for the original park obtained through the Florida Community Trust (FCT) Grant program.
Given that boat ramps are now a money-making enterprise for Marathon due to ramp use and parking fees enacted earlier this year, city staff would need to re-approach administrators about the possibility of continuing to fund the new design with the existing grant – originally intended for passive recreational projects.
Speaking with the Weekly after the meeting, City Manager George Garrett said he thought the chances were “50-50 at best” that the funds would still be available for a redesigned park.
“I’m going to say I disagree (with the redesign),” Garrett told the council. “So at that point, that’s my opinion personally as a taxpayer and as a professional sitting in front of you.”
“If we’re going to go ahead and say ‘I’m giving up a grant,’ we now have boat ramp fees,” Smith said. “We also have capital infrastructure fees we used to acquire this property. There are other sources of revenue besides grants to do what we want to do with this property.”
Mayor Luis Gonzalez blasted the possibility of pushing the start of construction further down the road.
“We’ve talked about this, and we’ve had workshops and more workshops, and we’ve beat this horse to death,” he said. “This plan could take two years, and in two years from now, there could be five different people up here, and they have a whole different idea, and this goes back to square one again, and nothing gets accomplished again.
“We’re (also) talking about grants. … (If) now we go back to the grant originator and tell them now we want to change, they’re going to say, ‘Marathon doesn’t have their stuff together,’ you’re going to get pushed to the bottom of the pile, and guess what’s going to happen when Marathon asks for a grant?”
“I think the mayor read my notes,” added Vice Mayor Robyn Still. “I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve heard from citizens talking about how nothing’s happening at the Quay, and it just keeps getting postponed.”
Though no formal vote was taken, with a persistent 3-2 majority of Landry, Smith and Matlock, the council directed staff to halt work on the existing park plans and move forward with a two-ramp redesign.
