Finger-pointing and ‘falsehoods’: The fate of the Coral Gables Country Club is divisive
On a recent Thursday night, hundreds crowded into a Coral Gables Country Club ballroom to stop what they viewed as an attempt by City Hall to deliver the taxpayer-owned venue to a politically connected businessman.
“You brought a knife to a gunfight,” Gables resident Manny Fernandez told club operator and Liberty Entertainment Group CEO Nick Di Donato, telling him to try harder to keep the venue. “If we don’t put our finger in the dam now,” worried University of Miami professor Jack “Wesley” Miller, “Coral Gables will change.”
In a community where new development has sparked something of an urban identity crisis, the fate of the “Crown Jewel of Coral Gables” has become the latest flashpoint in the debate between embracing change and preserving the traditional flavor of the city’s quiet, Mediterranean neighborhoods.
City commissioners and administrators contend that Di Donato, operator of the Coral Gables Country Club since 2009, defaulted on rent and allowed the club to run in disrepair over the last decade. In a town hall meeting, held just east of the club at the same time as Di Donato’s Sept. 23 gathering, new Mayor Vince Lago addressed the tension. At a commission meeting in the days that followed, he called allegations of back-room deals and underhanded tactics “misrepresentations and falsehoods put forth by the current tenant.”
But the club’s management and some of its 1,200-person membership have accused the city of lying about the stewardship of the venue and cutting short Liberty Entertainment Group’s lease so that a tenant like Rodney Barreto — an influential lobbyist whose bid to run the club was rejected this year by the city — can take over and inject millions into the property.
The campaign to keep the club in Di Donato’s hands has capitalized on fears about the homogenization of Coral Gables, warning club members that a new owner would not just change the club, known for its laid-back yet scenic atmosphere, but foreshadow a future Coral Gables that is rife with luxury developments and overpriced amenities.
“We acquired a dilapidated, old building,” Di Donato said at the meeting. “We have left our legacy, we have restored our building. If the city decides they want to take it away from us, we have left our mark ... but it wasn’t the moral thing to do.”
Left without a bidder
As old as the city itself, the club was first built in 1924 and abuts Granada Golf Course, the oldest 9-hole course in the state. It was taken over by Liberty Entertainment Group — which operates as Coral Grand — in 2009, when Di Donato’s son was a student at the University of Miami and the family had committed to spending more time in Coral Gables.
For the last decade, the company says, Coral Grand has spent millions to update the aging 40,000-square-foot building, which they said they inherited with warped flooring, a water-damaged roof and a pool in need of repairs. The company, whose daily operations are run by Di Donato’s nephew, Anthony, was still working on repairs when the COVID-19 pandemic put the hospitality industry on hold. It was during that time that the company fell behind on a rent payment in April 2020, violating the payment schedule in the lease agreement with the city.
A city spokeswoman contends that for the last decade, the executives behind Coral Grand have been “uncooperative and have failed to comply with their responsibilities as set forth in their lease agreement.” In March, the city put Coral Grand on notice that it did not intend to renew its lease, which was up in September, because of the missed payments.
The operators reached a settlement agreement with the city that would let them stay through April 2022, so as to honor already-booked weddings and events. The 18-page agreement, signed last June, waives the operator’s right to sue, and contends that the operators can’t default on any more payments. In a statement at the town hall, Nick Di Donato told the crowd that the operators “didn’t agree” on their own terms.
“We were forced to agree,” he said.
The city is in the early stages of an audit into the last five years of Coral Grand’s operations, which Mayor Vince Lago has said will take one month.
A city spokeswoman did not answer questions as to why the city decided to conduct an audit of the company after it entered into a settlement agreement. Lago declined an interview request and instead released a statement promising to “protect the special character of the neighborhood.”
The Barreto factor
In April of this year, the city’s Procurement Division put out a 42-page request for proposals for a bidder who, at a minimum, would make an initial investment of $4.5 million into the club.
The deadline was May 24 and presentations were to be made in June.
Only one proposer submitted a bid: the Barreto Hospitality Group, run by Barreto, a political fundraiser who dines with the governor, helped Miami land Super Bowl LIV and sits as chairman of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
Barreto first approached the Di Donatos about taking over the lease for the Country Club in late 2020, when the Barreto Hospitality Group was in the process of purchasing the Di Donatos restaurant on Miracle Mile. They said they weren’t interested.
When the request went out, Barreto submitted a bid that included local chef and television personality Adrianne Calvo as president, pitching “a public family-oriented, full-service facility” that provides multiple dining options, event spaces and wellness activities throughout the club.
“I was born in Coral Gables, I live in Coral Gables, my office is in Coral Gables. I am your neighbor. I have to look at my neighbors every single day,” Barreto said during a recent interview at his restaurant Forte by Chef Adrianne, located in a venue that used to be the Di Donato’s restaurant Cibo. “We are not trying to price anybody out or kick anybody out.”
Their bid was deemed unresponsive, since the group failed to meet a minimum requirement that bidders have at least five years of business operations, a city spokeswoman said. Though Barreto has decades of experience in his other companies, the Barreto Hospitality Group officially formed in 2020.
“That hasn’t curbed our enthusiasm,” Barreto said. “We are still very interested.”
Increasing scrutiny around the process, Barreto has also submitted an unsolicited bid to take over the lease for the old-school Burger Bob’s restaurant at the Granada Golf Course.
But despite critics’ suspicions of coordination between the city and Barreto, a Miami Herald request for emails and text messages between all Barreto employees and members of the City Commission for the last calendar year did not reveal any communications beyond invitations to the ribbon cutting ceremony for Redfish by Chef Adrianne, a Barreto Hospitality property.
A spokeswoman said that at the city manager’s direction, the city’s Community Recreation Department has started looking into what it would take for their department to manage the Coral Gables Country Club, should the city not find a suitable operator for the facility by April.
Dueling public comments
Soon after the Barreto Group’s original bid, the Coral Gables Country Club started a community campaign to rally around the owners and push the city to change its mind.
At the town hall last month, the organizers showed a PowerPoint presentation “debunking” statements made by the city regarding rent payments and the settlement agreement. An online petition protesting the change in operators already drew more than 3,000 signatures, some residents pointed out.
The city, however, has made its own public statement, sending out two email blasts to “set the record straight” and addressing the issue at a town hall and a subsequent commission meeting. Commissioners and the city manager have also sent out their own messaging.
They made note of issues like unpermitted work and failures to return deposits for canceled events, and highlighted that Anthony Di Donato uses the Country Club as the registered address for other business matters.
‘We will not be intimidated by misinformation. We will do what is correct,” Lago said from the dais during a September commission meeting.
Nick Di Donato said he doesn’t think the city has “ill intentions” by making their statements and denies that there is any animosity between him and the commission. He did express his unhappiness with City Manager Peter Iglesias, who Di Donato says ignores requests for meetings.
He said he has made peace with the fact that his time running the club is coming to an end, and said the outrage among residents resulted in something ultimately positive.
“As a result of the differences in opinion, the community had an opportunity to express their opinion and their desires,” he said in a phone interview.
His statements are a departure from those of his nephew, Anthony, who has said the city is actively trying to paint his business in a poor light.
“I would never work with the city again, and I discouraged anybody to do it because it’s frankly not fair,” Anthony Di Donato said at a recent interview outside the club’s ballroom. “They have double standards and they treat every person differently.”
He is skeptical that Lago’s promise of maintaining the character of the club will hold.
“The city has said they don’t want to work with us. I am fine with that,” he said. “I hope the city isn’t just appeasing the public and then in six months go back to Rodney Barreto.”
This story was originally published October 5, 2021 at 5:22 PM.