How Miami taxpayers could be left holding a $400m bill for luxury real estate

Miami-Dade county officials agreed to pay HRP Group more than double the price for land on Fisher Island to protect fuel depot used by the cruise industry

A three-way tug-of-war erupted in recent months over ownership of a property on Fisher Island - one of the wealthiest zip codes in the United States - that sits in Biscayne Bay opposite the skyline of downtown Miami. When TransMontaigne Partners, a Denver-based global energy company, put the parcel on the market in May 2024, interest ran high because that land represented the last remaining piece of real estate available for development on the island.

The eventual winner of the bidding war was a Chicago-based developer called the HRP Group, which purchased the property for $180m in late September last year. The developer then announced ambitious plans to build condominium towers on the property at an estimated cost of $2bn.