Ken Griffin Runs Into Miami Resistance Over Personal Helipad

Ken Griffin is running into opposition to his plans to build a personal heliport in Miami Beach, in a rare instance of pushback to the financier’s South Florida development spree.

The leaders of eight luxury condominiums lining Biscayne Bay are urging local officials to reject Griffin’s plan to land his helicopter at a marina he is building for his yachts near the city’s port. The Miami Beach land-use committee recommended the project to the city planning board at a public hearing Thursday, but it still will need to be approved by the city’s governing commission later this year.

In an email to Miami Beach’s mayor and city commissioners that was reviewed by Bloomberg, the condo group said that Griffin’s chopper flying near their homes would be loud and disruptive.

The condo buildings, located roughly a third of a mile from the proposed heliport site, are home to about 2,000 apartments, from one-bedrooms priced at less than $1 million to a triplex penthouse on the market for $78 million.

“He’s saying that his helicopter is the quietest model, that noise won’t be an issue for us,” John Stimmel, president of the Icon, a 42-floor condo, said in an interview. Stimmel, who rallied his neighbors to oppose Griffin’s plan, rejects that argument.

“I asked ChatGPT if landing helicopters that close will be noisy, and guess what?,” he said. “It will be noisy.”

The heliport is one of the first proposals from Griffin that’s run into significant public resistance since he moved his family and his financial firm, Citadel, to Miami in 2022. Griffin, who has a net worth of $57.5 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, has assembled a real estate portfolio valued at well over $1 billion in South Florida.

The backlash is a sign that some Miamians have started to chafe at the super-wealthy transplants who’ve been remaking the city since the Covid-19 pandemic. Other similar fights, including a battle over plans to transform a municipal marina in Miami into a refuge for superrich yachters, have been playing out elsewhere in South Florida.

Not all of Griffin’s neighbors oppose the heliport. Residents of three nearby enclaves for the wealthy — Palm Island, Hibiscus Island and Star Island — told city officials they support it. Griffin also owns property on Star Island.

“A helipad is an appropriate accessory use for the marina,” the residents’ representative, Chris Torto, wrote to city officials on Sept. 4. The marina, which is still under construction after being approved last year, “will enhance the character of the Islands,” he added.

To push for the heliport, Griffin hired former Miami Beach mayor and land-use attorney Neisen Kasdin to lobby local officials and residents. Kasdin told Miami Beach Commissioner Joe Magazine that Griffin’s Airbus H160 helicopter, which sells for $14 million and up, is one of the quietest models on the market. Griffin performed studies that show that the helicopter would cause the least noise possible for residents closest to the marina, Magazine said.

The tests found that noise from a passing helicopter wouldn’t be any higher on condo balconies than “normal conversation between two people,” according to a presentation for the city prepared for Griffin by a consultant.

A spokesperson for the marina project said experts confirmed any sound impact would be negligible and less disruptive than frequent cruise ship horns in the area.

“The bottom line is it will have no, or virtually no, effect on any of the units or residents there,” Kasdin said at the public hearing Thursday.

Kasdin said Griffin wants a landing pad that’s more convenient to his marina and to Star Island, where he’s building his primary residence. Griffin now uses a landing pad on Watson Island, about two and a half miles, or just over 4 kilometers, west of the marina site, making 61 trips in the last year, he said.

Griffin has “certainly shown and demonstrated his willingness to be a great partner with cities where he lives, and he employs a lot of people in Miami,” said Magazine, who agreed to sponsor the proposal. The Miami Beach city administration also recommended the project be approved. “Of course, we want to put our residents’ concerns at the forefront of what we do,” Magazine said.

When news of the heliport plans emerged, it disturbed condo leaders who worried about what it would mean for quality of life in their complexes. Stimmel envisioned scores of neighbors calling him to complain about the noise every time Griffin flew by, and so he raised the issue at a monthly meeting of condo presidents in his neighborhood, an exclusive enclave known as South of Fifth. They all signed an email opposing the proposal that went to Miami Beach officials on Sept. 1.

“This is a land-use issue as much as a noise issue,” said Stimmel. “You are giving one person a permit for something that could be potentially annoying for a thousand.”

Griffin is also building a 54-story headquarters for Citadel in Miami’s Brickell financial district. He deployed lawyers, lobbyists and consultants to get approval for the headquarters, to buy out and demolish an apartment building across the street, and move a nearby historic, protected, century-old doctor’s office. Work on the site was temporarily put on hold following a drilling rig accident earlier this month.

There are more than two dozen heliports registered in greater Miami, mostly at hospitals, stadiums and venues like Tootsies Cabaret, a sprawling strip club. It’s unclear if any other heliports are registered for the use of a single individual. Some wealthy residents in places like Indian Creek, an island known as “Billionaire Bunker,” land on floating helipads and use small boats to get to dry land.

Griffin’s heliport would complement a marina complex with room for nine vessels, an art gallery, pool, and office space. For yacht crew, there will be a gym and pool.

Photo: An Airbus H160 helicopter, similar to Griffin’s, seen at the Farnborough International Air Show 2026. Bloomberg photograph.