Big Blue still stands at the foot of the 17th Street Bridge, eleven years after the power plant shut down in 2015. Next to it, the city's sewer plant is still running, and its demolition is slated for 2028. One piece of the site has already changed. Last December the city demolished one of the old treatment plant's tanks to make room for the Youth Sailing Foundation's new sailing center, which will sit beside the Three Corners property.

That leaves 38 acres of city-owned lagoon shore. The plan for them is a $250 million mixed-use district, and since March the plan has sat in lease negotiations with ClearBlue Holdings. The hotels and marina are not what has slowed things down. Vero News reported that the immediate sticking point is how to pay for the public spaces at the center of the plan. Those spaces are expected to earn too little to pay for themselves. The council has given ClearBlue until its Dec. 8 meeting to reach an agreement. Any deal it brings back has to answer how those public spaces get paid for.

The Plan in Two Ledgers

The full proposal, as Vero News described it, has two parts. The first is the commercial program. The second is the public amenities, which are not expected to bring in enough revenue to pay for themselves.

The right column is what turns a hotel and marina project into a public waterfront. Vero News described Three Corners as the city's marquee project, one that would give Vero Beach a riverfront dining, shopping and lodging district for the first time. The city intends to lease the land to ClearBlue for 99 years and not sell it. Selling the property would violate the city charter, although the charter would allow a sale of the portion west of Indian River Boulevard that the U.S. Post Office once leased. No such sale has been discussed, and City Manager Monte Falls said rumors that ClearBlue wanted to buy the property were untrue.

Falls asked for the fourth extension because ClearBlue needed more time to look into financing for the parts of the development that would not generate revenue.

Three Ways to Pay for a Park

At the Oct. 13 meeting, Falls told the council that ClearBlue had identified three possible ways to pay for the public spaces.

Each option moves more of the cost away from the developer. The first keeps it entirely with ClearBlue. The second brings the city in as a grant partner. The third would involve local taxes, and none of this has been decided. All three are approaches presented to the council. None of them has been adopted.

The lagoon-grant option ties the project to the water it sits on. The observation pier, the promenade and the park would face the Indian River Lagoon. That gives the city a natural case for environmental and infrastructure funding, as long as it is willing to co-sign the applications.

How the Clock Reached December 8

The financing question has followed the project since before ClearBlue existed. Here is the record:

1. 2015. The Big Blue power plant closes.
2. October 2017. Vero Beach sells its municipal electric utility to Florida Power & Light.
3. 2021. Clearpath Services bids in the first round. The city cancels that selection after finding that the winning bidder had emailed city officials in violation of the Request for Proposal rules.
4. Aug. 15, 2024. The city issues a second round of proposals. Clearpath joins Madison Marquette, which had financed a rival first-round proposal called The Blue, and together they form ClearBlue.
5. March 11. A 120-day negotiation period begins.
6. Aug. 11 and Sept. 8. The council approves the second and third 30-day extensions. The third ran to Oct. 12.
7. Oct. 13. The council grants a fourth extension, this time for 54 days. It requires at least one in-person meeting between the negotiating teams and names Mayor John Cotugno as liaison.
8. Dec. 8. The extension expires at that council meeting.

Vice Mayor Taylor Dingle counted 539 days from the council's selection of ClearBlue to the Oct. 13 meeting. That meeting also fell almost nine years after the city sold its electric utility. In September, Vero News reported that Falls had sent ClearBlue a sternly worded email asking for a revised concept plan, a construction schedule, a business pro forma and evidence of a financing plan. He later confirmed that the outstanding information had arrived.

Why the Council Keeps Extending

Each extension has come with sharper words from the council. WQCS reported that council member Linda Moore set a clear limit:

"This would be, I think, the last extension that I would be super comfortable with unless all the finances are like i's dotted, t's crossed."

Dingle told the council, as Vero News reported, that "this needs to be a council decision and not a staff decision."

The extensions keep passing because starting over has its own price. Council member Aaron Vos told WQCS that the site's infrastructure is part of what makes negotiating hard, and that "it wouldn't be easy to back out of this and start all over again." A new search would mean another round of proposals, another selection and another negotiation period, all on a site that has already been through two rounds.

Moore pointed to a regional example at the September meeting. She mentioned King's Landing, the mixed-use project planned for the site of Fort Pierce's former municipal power plant. On Sept. 14, TCPalm reported that Fort Pierce commissioners had given that project's developer six months to raise $15 million. That is a nearby case of the same problem appearing after construction has already started. Vero Beach is trying to settle the financing before any agreement is signed.

ClearBlue says it is committed. Spokesperson Bob Salera told WPTV that the team has invested more than $1 million and 21,000 hours. He also said an in-person meeting with the council was set for Oct. 27, which the team had been requesting for months. Randy Lloyd, a principal of Clearpath and ClearBlue, told the council in September that the team had studied environmental requirements and permitting for the marina and had completed a hotel market study.

The Shoreline Is Changing Either Way

Some of the riverfront is changing regardless of what happens on Dec. 8. The city's water and wastewater operations are moving to the new One Water Campus, which is under construction near the municipal airport. When they leave, the site loses the sewer plant that has been its least appealing neighbor. The Youth Sailing Foundation's planned center, next to the property, is a lagoon-edge use outside the ClearBlue lease.

Riverside Theatre is open this season while its campus is renovated. It plans partial use of its new facilities this season, and Vero News reported that the full renovation is expected to finish by January 2028. Taken together, the theater's timeline, the sewer plant's 2028 demolition target and the sailing center mean the area around the bridge is already being rebuilt. Three Corners is the largest piece still undecided.

What the Dec. 8 Meeting Decides

Falls has said the two sides need an agreement ready to put before the council by the deadline. WPTV reported that council members told ClearBlue the city may need to go back to the drawing board without an agreement by Dec. 8, and Mayor Cotugno said the city would "see what happens" if the terms do not match its goals, and that he would stay at the table as long as progress is being made.

If an agreement does come to the council, the clearest thing to look at is which of the three financing options pays for the right-hand column of the ledger. That answer will show who pays for the promenade, the pedestrian bridge, the park and the observation pier on the lagoon, whether ClearBlue's investors, a grant program or a special district.

If you're weighing a riverfront property while Three Corners is still undecided, O'Dare Boga Dobson Group can talk through what this stretch of water means for your plans, and keep the conversation private.