By nine on a Sunday morning, the line at the Craave House stall inside Margaret Pace Park's farmers market wraps past the dog run and toward the tennis courts. Vendors are unpacking baked goods and produce for the weekly crowd. Twenty feet away, a chain-link fence remains around the shoreline project, which the city of Miami had targeted for completion by the first quarter of 2026.
The city's official master plan for its flagship waterfront park has been announced, funded in part, and delayed at nearly every stage since 2023. Meanwhile, residents organize recurring activities such as the market, yoga circles, and tennis bookings.
The market that brings weekly activity to the park
The Margaret Pace Park Farmers Market is not a city program. It's the work of East Coast Marketplace founder Lucia Marinelli, who moved from Milan to Miami in 2015 and opened a food truck called Made in Italy in Edgewater two years later with co-founder Juan Peñaloza, blending her Italian training with his Venezuelan background. What started as a single truck has grown into a small weekend circuit that now anchors much of Edgewater's foot traffic.
The market's own description of itself, building community rather than building markets, holds up against how it's used: a place people show up to before they've decided what they're buying. The weekly rotation looks like this:
- Sunday — Margaret Pace Park waterfront market, the flagship stop
- Friday, 4 to 9 p.m. — An evening pop-up along Bayshore Drive with food vendors and artisan goods
- Saturday — A more established market at Legion Park
- Saturday — Green Market on Flagler, a second project Marinelli launched in February
Micro-bakery Craave House is a regular at the Margaret Pace stall, which means the park's Sunday morning now has a bread line the shoreline construction fence does not.
A community-run tennis booking app
Margaret Pace Park's courts are popular, and Edgewater.tennis offers residents a community-run booking platform created specifically for the park's courts, with reservations capped at one hour per group and bookings limited to a 48-hour window.
The city's capital projects follow a separate course.
The master plan's published timeline and current status
The city's conceptual master plan for the park was unveiled on August 10, 2023, by then-District 2 Commissioner Sabina Covo and Parks and Recreation Director Chris Evans. It called for four construction phases plus a final community center, funded in part by more than $660,000 in Margaret Pace Park enhancement bonds and $400,000 in Edgewater Neighborhood Area Baywalk bonds, alongside roughly $1 million in impact fees, more than $2 million committed on paper before a single phase broke ground.
Here is what was promised against what has actually happened:
| Phase | What was promised (2023) | Status as of August 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Phase 1: shoreline, seawall, elevated baywalk | Construction starting 2023, done by Q1 2026 | A September 2024 city procurement filing shows no design engineer had even been selected, with no firm construction timeline set |
| Phase 2: playground upgrade, splash pad, dog park renovation | Completed "within the next year" after Phase 1 | Tied to the same slipped Phase 1 schedule |
| Phase 3: expanded volleyball, sand recreation area | Construction starting late 2024 | No public record of groundbreaking |
| Phase 4: tennis, basketball, and new pickleball courts | Following the Phase 3 timeline | No public record of groundbreaking |
| Community center | Construction starting late 2026, finishing 2028 | No groundbreaking reported as this piece was written |
The 2024 procurement filing followed the 2023 announcement, with the design firm still to be hired in late 2024. The city's Phase 1 project page now lists Damian Pardo as District 2 Commissioner; the plan was unveiled when Sabina Covo held the seat.
A petition filed by concerned Edgewater residents criticized the timing, saying the plan was rolled out "in the heat of the summer while most residents are not even here to notice." The petition raised concerns about the planning process; the park's recurring programs offer a look at its day-to-day use.
Other activities at the park
Free community yoga has become a fixture at Margaret Pace, with a Thursday evening session drawing crowds over sixty deep on a good week and periodic family-friendly sessions bringing out a different crowd entirely. The dog park's split between small-breed and large-breed runs still functions as designed. Pickup basketball and volleyball happen without anyone waiting on Phase 3. These activities continue alongside the park's planned capital projects.
The park's waterfront path is part of the citywide Baywalk route. A remaining gap beneath I-395 has a funded design: Miami city commissioners approved the design for the roughly 600-foot I-395 Baywalk Pedestrian and Bikeway Bridge in March 2026, with an estimated $2.14 million first phase intended to link Maurice A. Ferré Park to the shoreline north of the MacArthur Causeway. If that piece closes, Margaret Pace Park's own stretch of waterfront becomes part of one continuous walking and biking route along Biscayne Bay for the first time in the Baywalk's history, a genuinely different kind of neighborhood asset than the one that exists today.
The farmers market, yoga circles, and tennis app are part of the park's current activity; the seawall and community center remain planned projects.
For anyone who already calls this stretch of Biscayne Bay home, the park's current activities and project timeline offer useful context. For those weighing what a waterfront address in this part of Miami is worth day to day, The Pitlake Group offers the kind of grounded, informed perspective that comes from paying attention to how a neighborhood really runs. Schedule a Private Consultation to talk through what you're seeing on the ground.
