After nearly a decade of proposals, protests, and litigation, the plan to build a water park on the parking lots of Zoo Miami is finally dead. A circuit court judge granted Miami-Dade County’s motion for summary judgment and rescinded the county’s lease with Miami Wilds LLC, closing a case that had come to symbolize the tension between development and conservation in South Miami-Dade.
The project envisioned a water park, hotel, and retail complex on county owned land adjacent to the zoo. Conservation groups fought it for years, arguing the site sits within habitat critical to the endangered Florida bonneted bat, which uses the paved lots as a nighttime foraging ground, along with the Miami tiger beetle, Bartram’s scrub-hairstreak, and globally imperiled pine rocklands.
The unraveling began in federal court. The land had once belonged to the National Park Service, which retained oversight of commercial construction. In 2022 the agency signed an amendment releasing land use restrictions, clearing the way for the lease. Conservation groups sued, and in December 2023 a federal judge found the Park Service had violated the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act by failing to consult the Fish and Wildlife Service, invalidating the release.
Momentum shifted further when Zoo Miami’s own longtime spokesman, Ron Magill, publicly joined the opposition. Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, who had earlier sought to amend the development agreement, paused her support, then came out against the deal. The county canceled the agreement and sued to formalize the termination. Miami Wilds countersued, accusing the mayor of making a political decision to appease activists, a claim she dismissed.
In siding with the county, the judge pointed to what he described as a mutual mistake: neither party knew the federal amendment was invalid when the lease was signed. The ruling also upheld the county’s position that the project conflicted with public park deed restrictions on the land.
For conservationists, the outcome is a hard won victory a decade in the making. For the county, it closes a costly chapter. And for the bats that hunt above those parking lots each night, the lights will stay off.
