Miami-Dade County’s scramble to keep cruise ships fueled up at PortMiami is colliding with Fisher Island’s quest to wipe out the last industrial holdout in one of the country’s priciest ZIP codes, setting up a constitutional showdown over eminent domain and due process.
Fisher Island Club and Fisher Island Community Association recently sued Miami-Dade to stop the county from seizing a nearly 10-acre fuel depot that Chicago-based HRP Group bought last year for $180 million. HRP plans to convert the site into luxury condos.
The club is led by CEO Sase “Sasha” Gjorsovski, and the community association is led by president Roberto Sosa. HRP, led by CEO Roberto Perez, is not a party in the lawsuit.
A spokesperson for the Miami-Dade County Attorney’s Office declined comment. An HRP spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
James Ferraro, an attorney for the club and the association, said county officials have multiple alternatives for a new home for the fuel depot.
“It is an antiquated facility that is not compliant with current standards,” Ferraro said. “It’s time for it to go.”
The complaint, filed Wednesday in Miami federal court, alleges the county’s threatened condemnation is unconstitutional and flouts eminent domain laws because it is driven by “governmental convenience” in favor of private cruise lines rather than genuine public necessity. The plaintiffs also accuse the county of skipping over basic planning, a safety analysis and procedural fairness.
The property, a fuel farm long operated by TransMontaigne Partners, sits roughly 700 feet from homes and about 2,000 feet from an elementary school serving more than 160 children on a barrier island with no road access, the lawsuit states.
The terminal stores roughly 28.3 million gallons of marine fuel in tanks the plaintiffs allege are not up to date with fire codes and sit in a hurricane flood zone. The county has not produced any analysis that would justify extending the facility’s life with appropriate safeguards for Fisher Island residents and employees, according to the suit.
An HRP-led entity closed its purchase of the fuel depot in October and agreed to allow TransMontaigne to continue operating the fuel facility until 2027 when a county lease to store boat fuel at the facility expires.
“We have been counting days for that lease to terminate,” Ferraro said. “We fully expected that facility was going to be phased out.”
HRP, which specializes in redeveloping contaminated sites, has been positioning the property as the “last remaining” large-scale condominium site on the ultra-luxury island with an expectation the fuel tanks would be decommissioned and the site remediated for high-end residential.
Miami-Dade and HRP negotiations
HRP entered a development agreement with the Fisher Island Club and the neighborhood association that would carve out 4 acres of the fuel farm site for community improvements, according to the lawsuit.
In exchange, the club and the association pledged to support entitlements, grant memberships to condo buyers worth millions of dollars and help HRP navigate government approvals.
The association has veto power over any sale or conveyance of the 4 acres, except in circumstances such as a foreclosure or a scenario where HRP fails in good faith to obtain development approvals, the suit states.
The complaint asserts the association has the right to control its portion of the site if there is a partial taking by eminent domain, as well as a contractual veto over lease renewals with the county beyond 24-month terms for a six-year period if entitlement approvals lag.
Despite those recorded rights, the suit claims, the county cut Fisher Island out of backroom talks with HRP that will determine the future of the property.
In October, before HRP closed the deal, county commissioners approved a resolution authorizing administrators to acquire the site “by purchase or eminent domain” and to enter private mediation with HRP to negotiate the terms. Miami-Dade elected officials decided to take the property after heavy pressure from the cruise line industry, the complaint alleges.
With mediation deadlines passed and Miami-Dade now able to file an eminent domain petition “at any moment,” the club and the association are asking a judge to force the county back to the drawing board.
The two entities argue that the county’s taking of the fuel bunker must be supported by a rigorous analysis and a transparent process, not a last-minute scramble to keep the “Cruise Capital of the World” running on business as usual.
Self‑inflicted crisis
The lawsuit paints Miami-Dade’s predicament as an institutional failure years in the making.
For more than a decade, county business plans never flagged its 2027 lease expiration on the Fisher Island terminal, even though the site is the primary fuel source for cruise and cargo ships at PortMiami, which local officials say underpins tens of billions of dollars in economic impact, the lawsuit alleges.
After TransMontaigne listed the site in 2024 with an asking price of $200 million, the firm rejected a county purchase offer. Jimmy Morales, the county’s chief operating officer, publicly acknowledged that Miami-Dade officials did nothing to find alternative sites, the lawsuit claims.
When Miami-Dade officials learned that HRP was close to finalizing its purchase, county staff rushed out a bare-bones Oct. 7 report that identified nine alternative sites but dismissed them without feasibility studies, cost-benefit analysis, environmental review or long-range planning, the suit alleges.
Commissioners themselves expressed doubts about taking the fuel depot at a public meeting in September.
Commission Chairman Anthony Rodriguez Jr. questioned why the county was “even talking about eminent domain to a private parcel in the most expensive ZIP code in the country,” and County Commissioner Danielle Cohen-Higgins questioned why they were being asked to act “a week before the closing” with little notice to property owners, according to the complaint.
The Fisher Island groups argue that the county’s “condemnation first, justification later” approach violates the public-use and “reasonable necessity” prongs of Florida’s eminent domain law because the fuel facility primarily benefits private cruise lines.
The complaint notes that county documents reference fuel barges from nearby ports like Port Everglades as a viable way to maintain operations without seizing Fisher Island land. TransMontaigne also reportedly offered to put up $200 million toward a modern fuel depot at PortMiami that would occupy roughly 1 percent of the 520-acre port.
Ferraro, the attorney for the club and association, said county taxpayers would end up footing the bill if Miami-Dade is allowed to go through eminent domain, which requires government agencies to pay property owners fair market value.
“Taxpayers will get totally burned,” he said. “It is going to cost a lot of money to buy it … and then the county will need to replace the facility. That requires taking the old one down and building a new one. They are going to be spending maybe $500 million.”