Saving Key West’s “Crown Jewel”
September 19, 2025 vs. November 11, 2025
Both photos below were taken in 2025. The first shows that, after a year of showing the scars from the 2024 Power Boat Races, the lawn in Truman Waterfront Park had begun to heal. The second photo shows the effect of the densely packed “village” of semi trucks, camper trailers, boat trailers and flooring for temporary structures in undoing the entire year’s worth of progress.
Does Key West Care about its “Crown Jewel” or not?
In 2018 the City of Key West produced a slick and beautiful video touting the newly opened Truman Waterfront Park as the “crown jewel” of city parks on our island.
Truman Waterfront Park is amazing. It is one of the very few venues in our city where working people, young working adults working multiple jobs, and families can enjoy things like open spaces and water views . Fifty or so weeks of the year, it is, in fact, one of the most egalitarian and economically integrated places in this land of sky-high rent, tight quarters and long hours working multiple jobs.
Which makes one wonder why the city seems to care so little about it.
The city does spend a fair amount of money maintaining (and sometimes improving) the park. But in one crucial area, the neglect of this people’s park is glaring and disturbing.
Enter the Power Boat Races
Each year, a week or so after Fantasy Fest, the lawn and grassy areas of the park take a beating from Power Boat races sponsored by a private for profit corporation. The city knows it will happen. It’s been going on since the park was completed in 2018.
(Prior to that time the Powerboat Racers basically camped out and conducted their event on unimproved, and not terribly attractive, abandoned Navy property which had been given to the city (and would later become Truman Waterfront Park). It took the city at least a decade to decide what to do with the property, so the impact that the races had on it was not terribly significant until the park was actually completed.)
Having waited for over a decade for the city to actually build the park (which is in my neighborhood), I was delighted with the result. And, frankly, it took a few years before I realized what a beating it was taking from an event that, that while more than 40 years old, has grown exponentially in the past eight years.
In 2022 I watched with dismay while the ever-growing event killed off and/or scarred large areas of the beautifully laid out lawns. I assumed (naively) the city would come in after it was over and work on the damage.
I waited all fall and winter. Nothing happened. The scars healed some but did not go away. So, in March of 2023 I wrote to the city. After some back and forth I heard back. To my astonishment, the head of Community Services (the city department that maintains the park) said “last year [2022] we did not have any damage to the fields other than normal wear and tear.”
As a person who lives next to the park, and who walked its paths and the waterfront quay nearly every day of the year, I knew the statement of “no damage” was not empirically true.
So, I began to document the status of the lawns in Truman Waterfront Park each year. In this post there are photos from 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025. What I observed is that the damage to the lawns (particularly Major Field, the large open space in front of the Ingham Coast Guard museum) is real and cumulative. It is predictable and it is being ignored by both the city government and Race World Offshore (the outfit that puts on the Powerboat Races).
A Changed Landscape Requires Changed Thinking
It would have been hard to cause lasting damage to the old Navy property that existed prior to 2018, even if one tried. It was a hardscrabble non landscaped place. Unfortunately, what seems to have happened is that, once what the city itself calls “the crown jewel” of city parks was completed, nobody bothered (or wanted to think about) how having a landscaped site would change the damage wrought by heavy equipment. This oversight was compounded by the fact that both the event and the size of the equipment parked in the park, have grown tremendously. (This year, according to Race World Offshore, was a record breaking year.)
It is not possible to create a very dense trade show/camping/boat and semi-parking area and not damage the lawn. That is simple reality. But nobody wants to take responsibility for the damage.
The crucial term in the 2025 agreement between Race World Offshore and the city hasn’t changed much in six or more years:
“RWO will not be responsible for normal wear and tear to the natural grassy areas of the park. In the event of serious damage by a vendor or racing team RWO will be responsible for the necessary replacement of the natural grassy areas”.
The crucial problem is the interpretation of “normal wear and tear” by both the city and the Races organizers. There is, in fact, nothing “normal” about parking large semi trucks, campers, tents with hard flooring, and boat trailers on a lawn for over a week. (Not to mention the driving on the grass involved when “moving in”, “moving out” - and the back and forth of daily activity in what amounts to a very compact space.) After about 7 to 10 days the damage shows and it is lasting.
The city seems to feel that so long as the ruts aren’t too deep, the loss of the lawn isn’t particularly meaningful. Locals beg to disagree. Major Field and the other “grassy areas” of Truman Waterfront Park are the only “front yard” many people have. It’s just not right for an event largely organized by the very rich for the very rich to trash our communal “front yard” and then walk away without caring about fixing the damage. It’s not as if the park belongs to RWO - who merely loans it to the citizenry when they are not using it.
“Major Field and the other “grassy areas” of Truman Waterfront Park are the only “front yard” many people have.”
Where Do We Go From Here?
First, there needs to be honest recognition that, like in many things, there really aren’t any free lunches. Creating a high-density parking/retail/lodging development in a public park is going to cause damage and repairing that damage needs to be factored into somebody’s budget – whether the city’s or the event organizer’s (who basically get the use of the public infrastructure at nominal cost).
Second, the city needs to abandon the pretense that what happens each November to its “crown jewel” of parks is a low priority. The annual “tearing up of the grounds” happens right before the winter tourist season begins. Visitors and locals then view the decimated landscape throughout the Christmas, New Year’s, and the winter months. Ironically, the damage only begins to partially repair about the time tourists and seasonal residents leave. (Despite irrigation, grass here thrives best in the rainy season.)
Third, funding sources for annual post event repair need to be explored. It shouldn’t be necessary to renovate the entire grounds. Spot and patch seeding and/or sodding (especially of the de facto dirt “main street” that develops through the heart of the so called “village”) should do the trick. But it can’t be haphazard if the park is to look like something of which Key West can be proud for the winter season. Whether the funds should come from the event itself or be absorbed by the city is for the politicians to ponder. It does seem that, at least for this year - when nobody appears to have budgeted much, a TDC “infrastructure for tourist facilities” grant would be useful. Then the city can decide on a funding stream for future years.
Addressing the issue of damage to the park (instead of pretending it does not happen) could be a win/win for everyone. People may love or hate the Races, but the physical damage its artificial “village” causes leaves a bitter taste in the mouths of locals who cherish the park. No other event in Key West causes so much damage to public infrastructure. It’s bad PR (for both the city and the organizers) and it wouldn’t be the end of the world to work together to fix the issue.
Does Key West Care About Its “Crown Jewel” or Not?
I expect that the Powerboat Races will return next year. I’m accustomed to being evicted (like the rest of the public) from the public park for 10 days. Unlike many, I can easily take a few days to attend to business elsewhere. But I would love to know that the “crown jewel” of city parks will, after a few weeks, return to normal and not bear the scars of one very intense and destructive use for a year or more.
Heck, if this recurring problem could actually be addressed, think I’d relax enough to enjoy watching the boat parade.
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In Photos. Four Years of Cumulative Damage
The first two photos above were taken in November of 2022, after the Races. The third one was taken in April of 2023, showing that the damage remained unaddressed throughout the tourist season. (In fairness healing was delayed by problems with the park sprinkler system.)
By November of 2023, scars were still visible, but the lawn had begun to heal. The photos below show the field as set-up for the 2023 Races began:
Only to see the destruction return that week.
Below shows the “after show” condition:
And then, November of 2024:
2025 - Same story, with damage layered on prior damage. Crucially, the worst of the damage exists during tourist season. “Natural healing” is slow and actually peaks only after the rainy season ( the next summer) is almost over. At that point another cycle begins when the Races return.
