Ken Griffin wants to build a personal megayacht marina

Billionaire Citadel CEO and serial trophy home buyer Ken Griffin is in need of a personal megayacht marina in Miami Beach.

Griffin’s recent application to build the 30,000-plus-square-foot marina, first reported by the South Florida Business Journal, dubs the project One Island Park.

Griffin, whose Citadel hedge fund and sister company Citadel Securities quit Chicago in favor of Miami in 2022, already owns well over $1 billion of South Florida real estate. Industry insiders told The Post the influence of ultra-wealthy buyers like Griffin flocking to South Florida over the past five years is palpable.

“Whenever people think [South Florida real estate] is running out of steam, there’s another article that comes out with another great Ken Griffin push,” Cyril Bijaoui, a Miami-based, high-end real estate consultant, told The Post. “I think he’s part of the reason why Jeff Bezos is down here.”

Griffin, 54, is a Florida native. He was born in Daytona Beach, where his father worked on the space program during the Apollo moon landings, and raised in Boca Raton. Forbes currently estimates Griffin’s net worth at $50.6 billion.

Griffin’s new aquatic playground is planned for 3.71 acres at the tip of Terminal Island, an industrial slip positioned at a prime docking location between South Beach and Port Miami.

Public plans for the marina set out three to six parking spots, which could comfortably fit Griffin’s Peter Marino-designed superyacht and those of his wealthy guests, plus employee facilities to accommodate 24/7 staffing. The site might occasionally host events, the South Florida Business Journal reported, such as during Art Basel or the Formula One Miami Grand Prix.

“Reflecting his long-term commitment to Miami, Ken is investing to improve an industrial section of Terminal Island,” a spokesperson for Citadel shared with The Post.

Devin Kay, a Miami-based broker with The Exclusive Group at Douglas Elliman, told The Post that reactions to the marina have run along the lines of “go figure.”

“People just don’t really get surprised by this kind of stuff anymore,” Kay said, adding that he thinks the marina will be a positive for Miami’s luxury scene, regardless of its exclusivity.

Four buildings designed for One Island Park by BMA architects span nearly 37,000 square feet, according to submitted plans. Those include a guardhouse, a marina operations building, an owner’s pavilion and a staff pavilion. The owner’s pavilion includes an office and a pool, as well as nearby pickleball and padel courts. The pavilion for crew members offers attractive staff perks like a gym with a sauna and a “modest” rooftop pool.

Nothing about Griffin’s real estate ventures are modest — an under-construction Palm Beach mega-estate across 20 acres is destined to become one of the priciest homes on the planet when it’s completed. The project, reportedly planned for his mother to live in, is valued at a staggering $1 billion. Griffin began assembling the property in 2012, long before billionaires like Jeff Bezos made their own headlines for acquiring increasingly coveted lots along Biscayne Bay.

A rush to snap up these trophy properties began to dominate the area’s high-end market starting in 2020.

“We’ve started to see a lot of other people in these ultra-affluent neighborhoods in Miami Beach start to assemble properties,” Kay told the Post. “Because they either want more space, or they just think that long term that’s going to be something that is going to be impossible to replicate.”

In 2022, Griffin broke a Miami-Dade sales record with the $106.9 million purchase of Adrienne Arscht’s 4-acre Coconut Grove estate. The property south of downtown includes two bay-front houses with 12 bedrooms across 25,000 square feet. Griffin’s local record was only surpassed this year when Russian billionaire and developer Vladislav Doronin sold his $120 million Star Island estate — previously acquired from retired NBA star Shaquille O’Neal.

The exclusive enclave of Star Island, which sits just across the water from Terminal Island, hosts yet another Griffin assemblage of seven properties across 6 acres, for which the billionaire dolled out approximately $169 million since 2023.

Miami’s Brickell Avenue is also set to host Citadel’s new headquarters — a supertall spanning 1.3 million square feet. Griffin bought the site for a record-setting $363 million in 2022. Griffin recently announced that the projected cost of the delayed project has ballooned to around $2.5 billion, citing inflation.

A spokesperson for Griffin said a “more fully developed site program” also helps explain the price tag.

Griffin acquired the Terminal Island property through an LLC in 2023 for $77 million, South Florida Business Journal reported. The site was previously destined to host a 100,000-square-foot office complex for the Related Group. Griffin’s comparatively modest plan is pending city approval in early November.

Whether any kind of “Griffin bump” will carry over from real estate to boating is doubtful. Local scarcity of such deep-water docking space may begin and end the megayacht marina trend with Griffin.

“That location is ideal because you have great depths there,” Bijaoui said. “It’s near the port, which obviously supports gigantic cruise liners and cargo ships. I don’t know where else you could do it.”