New bayfront RV park rolling into Key Largo

An upscale recreational vehicle park in development along Florida Bay in Key Largo will likely go by the name Keys Palms Resort, owner Raul Medina told The Real Deal.

“We’re three months out from completion,” said Medina, who explained that he is not 100 percent certain about the name because he is still waiting on a contractor to guarantee delivery of the palms. At present, the site is largely denuded of trees.

For a decade, what is now Medina’s 2.7-acre bayfront lot, located at 104180 Overseas Highway, has been the second largest cleared and unoccupied waterfront property on the island of Key Largo. The only larger one, the former Rowell’s Marina less than a half-mile further north, was acquired by Monroe County in late 2013 and is slated to be turned into a park.

Construction of Medina’s 30-pad resort began last year, but this spring the frame of the reception building and clubhouse, as well as the frame of a smaller poolside building, have been built within clear sight of the Overseas Highway.

Medina says he is gearing the park toward motor homes as opposed to two-piece, tow-able RVs.

“I wanted to make something unique, not just a place to park. I wanted to make something exclusive to the motor homes,” he told TRD.

Plans show that Keys Palms, if that is indeed what it is called, will have five waterfront RV pads as well as two more pads that front the property’s boat basin. A swimming pool, complete with a separate spa, will also sit along Florida Bay. So will a man-made beach, though it won’t have a swimming area. Other amenities will include a fitness room, convenience store, laundry and a small recreation room, Medina said.

Medina Land Holdings 4, LLC purchased the property for $2.5 million in 2012 from a Capital Bank holding company. The mile marker 104.1 site is best known in Key Largo as the former home of Hobo’s Marina, which was closed in 2005 to make way for a planned hotel condominium project.

That project, which was to be built by the now-defunct Coconut Grove-based developer New Urban Places, was one of many that went belly-up along the Key Largo waterfront during last decade’s real estate bubble. Point of View RV Resort, which opened in 2013 near mile marker 99, along the Key Largo bayfront, also occupies the site of an aborted hotel project.

Keys Palms Resort is the first development for Medina, a retired owner of American Ambulance Service in Miami.

He estimates that the pads at his resort will rent for approximately $100 per night.