What next? A casino?

On Thursday night, the Grove Harbour Marina proposed expansion was brought up at the Candidates forum at the Village Council.

Commissioner Marc Sarnoff put down Michelle Niemeyer who is running against Sarnoff in the Nov. 1 election for District 2 Commissioner, for supporting a proposal to put in a three story building at the site a few years back, which has since been voted down.

But now, according to an article in yesterday's Miami Herald, Sarnoff is in favor of another office building of three story height to be built on the Grove's waterfront. The National Parks Service wants to build an office building for themselves.

Amazing. This is a totally horrible plan (which is preliminary at this point) and the Herald says, "Sarnoff has been touting the Biscayne National plan as a potential bonanza for the city while insisting it would not significantly alter the Sasaki plan. Mayor Tomas Regalado is also supporting the Biscayne National plan."

The Sasaki plan is the Waterfront Master Plan agreed upon in 2008, which maps out the future of Coconut Grove's waterfront.

In this case, Niemeyer is totally against this plan. So it seems that Sarnoff felt it was ok to bring up the Grove Harbour project at last week's meeting, out of the blue, with large poster board to illustrate how he was right and Niemeyer was wrong, when secretly he had known about this other project but didn't say a word.

At Thursday's meeting, Sarnoff specifically said that this type of building belongs downtown and on Brickell. But now he and the Mayor feel it is a good idea to screw up the Sasaki plan and the Grove's waterfront by adding a 10,000 square foot building on the waterfront.

This new proposed building would sit where the Expo Center is now, which is where Burn Notice films. Sarnoff tried to throw out Burn Notice for the longest time because he insisted the waterfront needed to be seen and the building was blocking the water. But luckily Burn Notice won that fight due to lots of community support. Sarnoff, the lone hold out, was willing to throw out the cash cow, Burn Notice, in order to have a big expanse of grass. Now, all of a sudden, the three story buidling seems suitable for the area. Forget the expanse of grass now which was so important to him at one point?

Remember the pipes I told you about guys? First the three story building, next Bayside.

I ran into someone in Sarasota this weekend who was telling me how he used to visit the Grove all the time and loved it. He said he visited recently and was totally turned off by the way it has changed. It is not Coconut Grove anymore. It's sad the way things are sold off to the highest bidder. It's always about the almighty dollar.

First the trees are getting chopped down, in the name of progress, now this plan? What next casinos?