The City of Vero beach has granted the would-be developer of the Three Corners Project another 30-day extension to negotiate the details of its agreement with the city to create a mixed-use development on 38 city-owned acres at the western end of the 17th Street Bridge.
The delay seems to be due more to slow city staff work than any fault on the part of the development team.
It was way back on Nov. 4, 2025, that the city produced a letter of intent to negotiate with Madison Marquette and Clearpath Services, two businesses that joined forces under the name Clear Blue, LLC to take on the massive project after the last competitive bidding process.
The LOI required the developer to come up with a good-faith deposit of $50,000. Clear Blue produced the cash on March 11, which triggered a 120-day negotiation period.
When it looked like an agreement would not be reached within that timeframe, the city extended the negotiation period by 30 days. Then, last week, city council members approved a second 30-day extension on Aug. 11, the day the first extension was set to expire.
That was the same day that city staff delivered a marked-up master development agreement to the developer. The MDA is an overarching legal contract that establishes the core rules, timelines and responsibilities of both parties, defining long-term obligations between Clear Blue and the city.
It’s also the nexus of the now five-month-long negotiations between the city and Clear Blue, with both parties making changes to the agreement as it is hammered into its final form.
City Manager Monte Falls told the city council that the latest extension was needed to give the developers time to evaluate and respond to the city’s most recent markups.
“I’m OK with this extension, but I don’t think I would be OK with another one,” said council member Linda Moore. “It feels like we’re stalling a little bit.”
Falls responded that the city is required to negotiate in good faith and staff had put a lot of time into marking up the MDA.
“When the city council and the purchasing department put together the RFP (Request for Proposal), we purposely kept a really tight control on this from a negotiation standpoint,” said Mayor John Cotugno. “Thirty days is a short window.”
Granting longer extensions, Cotugno said, could mire negotiations in problems like the City of Fort Pierce has experienced with the developers of King’s Landing – a $115 million mixed-use waterfront redevelopment project proposed for the site of that city’s former municipal power plant. King’s Landing stalled after the original developer bowed out and the new developer halted construction and asked the city for more money to finish the project.
The City of Fort Pierce “is no longer looking at the same project they put out for RFP,” Cotugno told Vero Beach 32963. “We want to avoid that kind of problem. The 30-day renewal period keeps the communication going and keeps everything transparent.”
Moore, who served with Cotugno on the Three Corners steering committee that helped shape the plan, said that city residents keep asking her why things are taking so long.
“Obviously, we want them to take the time to get it right,” Moore said. “But also, if this is not going to work out, then let’s move on. We are still very driven to give the community the ‘standing ovation plan’ they voted for. I still want to produce something that the community can be proud of.”
Plans call for the city to lease the 38-acre property on the western shore of the Indian River Lagoon to Clear Blue for 99 years. In turn, the development team has agreed to create a vibrant, nautical Florida-themed waterfront district with a hotel, marina, restaurants, shops and numerous amenities open to the public.
The property is the longtime site of the city’s “Big Blue” power plant, which closed in 2015, and the still functioning city sewer plant, which is slated for demolition in 2028.
Planning for the project began almost seven years ago, in November 2019.
Working with noted urban planner Andres Duany, the city hosted a series of public workshops and charrettes to gauge what the community wanted at the site. The site plan and proposed amenities evolved through multiple versions until the final plan was presented during a public meeting, where it elicited a standing ovation. In 2020, voters overwhelmingly approved a referendum to allow commercial development at the property.
“I want us to stick to the original plan,” Moore said. “I don’t want to see anything switched around in a way that’s not desirable.”
The city adopted the final masterplan for the project five years ago, in June 2021, and put out a request for proposals shortly afterward. Four development teams made it through the initial review process, offering plans that ranged in cost from $250 million to $500 million. The city and its selection committee picked the most grandiose proposal, but almost immediately reversed their decision after discovering that the winning developer had sent emails to city officials in violation of the RFP rules.
In the aftermath of that debacle, instead of awarding the contract to the second-place contender, the city wiped the slate clean and started the process over – much to the chagrin of participating developers and the public alike. For a while, the project appeared like it might be dead in the water, but another RFP eventually went out.
Only two developers participated in the second selection process – Clearpath Services and a group called The Blue. The city selected Clearpath in April 2025, although the company lacked sufficient financing. Soon after, Madison Marquette, the financers behind The Blue’s proposal, teamed up with Clearpath to form Clear Blue.
Negotiators for the two sides have been hashing out the details of the master development plan in weekly Zoom meetings. Once that agreement is finalized – hopefully, before the latest extension deadline expires in September – the contract will go before the council for final approval, and Clear Blue will begin the construction design and permitting phase of the project.
