"To do a long-term lease and a long-term development agreement, it's not a 10-page document. It's an extensive document." Randy Lloyd, a principal of Clearpath Services and ClearBlue Holdings, said that to the Vero Beach City Council on Sept. 8, the same meeting where the council gave his team a third 30-day extension. That extension runs out Oct. 12.
From the 17th Street Bridge, every extension headline makes it sound like the whole project is still up in the air. It isn't. What happens to the 38 acres of city-owned land at the foot of the bridge was mostly settled years ago, by voters, by the city charter and later by the zoning code. The talks still running are about something narrower. They're about whether one development team can show the money and sign a lease the council will approve.
What voters and the council already put in writing
The council approved the Three Corners Master Concept Plan in February 2022. That November, Vero Beach voters approved a referendum by nearly 80 percent allowing commercial development on the former power-plant parcel. The vote allowed development. It did not choose a developer or approve a final building plan.
On Aug. 12, 2025, the council voted 5–0 to adopt Three Corners zoning rules and move the site into its own districts. Those rules already describe what goes where:
- TC-1 is a walkable village of shops and restaurants.
- TC-2 covers the redevelopment of the Big Blue power plant site, built around a central park.
- TC-3 is set aside for recreation and cultural uses on the wastewater-plant parcel.
Ownership is the third settled piece. City Manager Monte Falls told the council there were rumors ClearBlue wanted to buy the property outright to help with financing. He said the rumors were untrue and that a sale would violate the city charter. The charter does allow a sale of the strip west of Indian River Boulevard that the U.S. Post Office once leased, but Falls said nobody has discussed selling it. The plan is a 99-year lease, with the developer committed to a nautical, Florida-themed waterfront district: a hotel, a marina, restaurants, shops and amenities open to the public.
So the public use, the zoning districts and city ownership are all fixed. The open question is who builds it and on what terms.
How the site ended up with a two-company developer
The developer side has gone through two selection rounds and one merger. Here's the order:
- First round. The city canceled the competition after finding that the winning bidder, SūDā, had broken the request-for-proposals rules by emailing city officials. The city started over.
- Dec. 17, 2024. Clearpath, one of the original 2021 bidders, submitted a new proposal.
- April 22, 2025. The council picked Clearpath as preferred developer, even though city staff later noted Clearpath had not yet shown enough financing.
- July 22, 2025. The council voted 5–0 to give Clearpath 30 more days to bring in partners and financial capacity.
- Nov. 4, 2025. The council voted 5–0 to negotiate with a combined team. Clearpath had joined with Madison Marquette, the financial backer behind The Blue, a rival group from the first round. Together they became ClearBlue.
- March 11, 2026. With a $50,000 deposit in place, the city executed a nonbinding letter of intent covering the northern parcel first, and the 120-day formal negotiation period began.
- June 23, Aug. 11 and Sept. 8, 2026. The council granted three 30-day extensions in a row.
Read in order, the timeline shows the financing problem from April 2025 is what the 2026 extensions are still working through. Bringing in Madison Marquette was meant to fix it. The latest round shows how far that fix has gotten.
What the extensions are actually about
On Sept. 1, Falls sent ClearBlue what Vero News called a sternly worded email. It listed what was missing: a revised concept plan, a revised construction schedule, a business pro forma and documents showing a sufficient financing plan. He set a Sept. 11 deadline. The state had also rejected the team's filing to register ClearBlue Holdings LLC as a business name.
By the Sept. 8 meeting, Falls said, ClearBlue had delivered most of those documents, though the financial disclosures were still outstanding. The following week he told Vero Beach 32963 they had arrived. A separate filing, ClearBlue Holdings VB1 LLC, was accepted and active, and Falls said that satisfied the city.
Vero News has given more than one reason for the delays. Its late-August report put the slow pace mainly on city staff work. Its Sept. 20 update focused on the documents ClearBlue had not yet turned in. Both sides say the work is moving. Lloyd told the council that his team's subcommittees had been working on environmental requirements and permits for the marina, and that ClearBlue had finished a hotel market study. Falls said weekly online negotiation sessions would continue, with some in-person meetings added.
Council member Linda Moore was more blunt at the Sept. 8 meeting:
"There's got to be progress made. It can't be just spinning our wheels. And I mean, we all read the paper. We all know what's going on in Fort Pierce, and none of us want to be Fort Pierce."
She meant King's Landing, Fort Pierce's mixed-use waterfront project on the site of its own former power plant. Vero News reported that those plans stalled after the first developer left and a second developer paused construction and asked the city for more money. That explains why the council has made the financing paperwork the condition for keeping talks going.
The bid numbers are a starting point
Most of the specific numbers in circulation come from Clearpath's April 2025 bid. It proposed two hotels with 245 rooms in total, eight condo villas, 11 fishing-villa cottages, a 20,000-square-foot grocery store, restaurants, an amphitheater and a community park. The first phase included marina docks, a skate park, parking, homes and retail space. Clearpath's December 2024 proposal named the public spaces the Grand Promenade, Central Community Park and Waterfront Village.
The city has asked for a revised concept plan, and the final program depends on how the negotiation ends, so those figures describe a 2025 bid rather than a commitment. The schedule needs the same caveat. In 2025, Clearpath said a waterfront village, marina and tiki bar could open by the end of 2027, with full buildout running until at least 2028. In August 2026, WQCS reported that construction could still be a year away. The city's sewer plant south of the bridge is still running and is scheduled for demolition in 2028.
The money side shows why the city chose to lease. Peter Polk, the city's Three Corners project manager, said the power-plant parcel was appraised at $17 million in 2024. Add the 17-acre wastewater parcel and a sale would have brought in more than $35 million. Mayor John Cotugno put the goal this way: "We're not doing this because we expect to make money." He described the project as lagoon access and a waterfront hub, built at no cost to the city and ideally earning enough to cover the city's expenses once open. The city's consultants projected the finished first phase would earn slightly more than $34 million a year in stable net revenue by its sixth year of operation. How much of that reaches the city depends on lease terms that are still being negotiated.
What to watch Oct. 12 and after
- Oct. 12. The third extension expires.
- Oct. 13, 9:30 a.m. The City Council meets in Council Chambers, the day after the deadline. A second October meeting is set for Oct. 27 at the same time.
- The agenda. As of Oct. 4, the newest council agenda posted is for Sept. 22, and it had no Three Corners item. No October agenda had been posted yet.
- The documents. The city's August staff memo said the two sides were trading draft language for the Master Development Agreement and ground lease. Whatever comes out of the talks still needs a council vote before design and permitting can start.
As of early October, there is no signed development agreement, no executed lease and no confirmed construction start date for Three Corners.
If you own property near the 17th Street Bridge or are thinking about buying along the lagoon, Three Corners is worth tracking as its paperwork moves forward. Renny Realty can go through the public record with you and help you decide which milestones matter for your own timing. Schedule a consultation.
