Miami-Dade County moves to evict Miami Seaquarium, gives park until April to vacate

[In It to Win It]

Miami-Dade County moves to evict Miami Seaquarium, gives park until April to vacate

Miami-Dade County on Thursday gave the Miami Seaquarium weeks to vacate its government-owned campus after a string of federal inspection reports alleged poor care of animals there.

The notice terminating the Seaquarium’s county lease moves Miami-Dade dramatically closer to ejecting the Seaquarium from its home of nearly 70 years in a rapid escalation of the confrontation between Mayor Daniella Levine Cava and the company that took over the for-profit operation in 2022.

“This decision did not come lightly,” Levine Cava said at an afternoon press conference. “But the situation at the Seaquarium is so dire that we believe terminating the lease is the best course of action to assure safety for all.”

In a letter from the mayor’s office Thursday morning, Miami-Dade ordered the Seaquarium to surrender its waterfront property by April 21.

“Lessee’s long and troubling history of violations constitute repeated, continuing longstanding violations of Lessee’s contractual obligations to keep the property in a good state of repair, maintain animals in accordance with applicable law, and comply with all laws,” read the letter from Jimmy Morales, chief operating officer under Levine Cava.

[getagrip_already]

1. Sounds like they had a failure to communicate...

I'll hold off on any opinions since I'm clueless. But If deslimebag puts his little boot down on one side, I'll have a pretty good idea who's in the right.

[Martin68]

2. I'm sad to hear about this. I lived close to the Seaquarium inn 1966, and loved the place.

One time I climbed a ladder up the side of a large tank and found a dolphin swimming inside. It threw me an inflatable ball using its nose. I threw it back and we exchanged it several times, drawing a small crowd who wanted to see what was going on. The dolphin suddenly flipped its tail, splashing a number of onlookers to express its displeasure at the crowd, which was becoming noisy. Fascinating experience.

[XanaDUer2]

3. Grew up in Miami

The Seaquarium was my happy place, circa 1970s. I could have gone every weekend. I also loved Vizcaya

[Martin68]

4. Vizcaya was amazing. Perfect place for an Italian villa, taking full advantage of the sea breeze. Biscayne Bay

was pristine, and Key Biscayne had a lot of wild places left in the mangroves and what became the lighthouse park. They started building a road for the park while we were there. I could go everyplace on my bike. The paper printed a photo of one of the 10-foot rattlesnakes they found while they were clearing the brush for the park road. 1966. An amazing year.