Drive south on Indian River Boulevard past the 17th Street intersection and the new building on the lagoon side is hard to miss. It has a metal roof, British West Indies lines and a cupola on top. Kelly Pipkin, the Proctor Construction job superintendent, told Vero News that once the windows are LED-lit, the cupola will "look like a lighthouse when you are coming over the bridge at night."
This is the Pat Harris Community Sailing Center, built by the Youth Sailing Foundation of Indian River County. For people in Vero Isles who have spent years hearing about a public waterfront at Three Corners, it changes the order of things. The hotels, the marina and the event center are still under negotiation. Some of the public pieces that plan describes, like pavilions, walkways, docks and a playground on the lagoon, are coming from a nonprofit that raised its own money and kept to its own schedule.
What sits at 17 17th Street today
The Youth Sailing Foundation gives the site's address as 17 17th Street, Vero Beach, FL 32960, just south of the Alma Lee Loy Bridge. You get in east of Indian River Boulevard, just south of the 17th Street intersection.
The 10,000-square-foot building will be surrounded by a marine recreation park with pavilions, walkways, boat ramps and docks. Stu Keiller, the foundation's project manager and interim executive director, told Vero News this summer: "The park is open to the public." Its office is open Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Here's how the building is laid out, based on the Vero News account:
- Ground floor: an entrance and foyer, an office for sailing instructors, space for teaching on shore, a 4,000-square-foot boat repair and boat building shop, boat storage, and large restrooms with showers that will be open to the public.
- Second floor: reached by stairs or an elevator. It has a main hall with 12-foot walls and a steeply vaulted wooden ceiling, plus a caterer's kitchen, classroom space and offices.
- Outside the hall: a 12-foot-wide veranda facing east and a large southeast patio overlooking the Indian River Lagoon.
Architect and urban planner Andre Duany helped with the design. The foundation goes down to marl and coquina, and the building is concrete block with a metal roof. Keiller says the view from the upper level reaches far enough south that "you can actually see the tops of the condo towers down in Fort Pierce from up there."
Why the sailing center came first
To get the building there, the city had to clear part of the old utility site. One of the old wastewater treatment plant's tanks was demolished and removed last December. Meanwhile, the city's water and wastewater operations are moving to the new One Water Campus being built near the municipal airport. Ground was broken that same month. In August, Keiller said the building would be finished by November 10.
By this summer, the money was in place. "Our budget for the building, pier, pavilions, boat ramps, playground and property is $6.4 million, and it is fully funded," Keiller told Vero News. The land is about three acres that the foundation leases long-term from the City of Vero Beach, as it announced in January 2025. Vero Beach 32963 reported the lease runs 25 years and can be renewed for another 25 if the foundation meets its terms.
The larger project next door is held up by financing. At its October 13 meeting, the Vero Beach City Council gave ClearBlue Holdings a fourth extension to finish an agreement for its proposed $250 million mixed-use development on the 38-acre tract. The new deadline is December 8. Vero News reported that the main open question is how to pay for the public spaces that are central to the vision but won't earn enough to pay for themselves. Those include a local history promenade, a pedestrian bridge, a community park, a playground, bicycle paths and an observation pier.
City Manager Monte Falls laid out three options ClearBlue has identified: raise more private capital, apply for state and federal grants with the city as a partner, or create a special taxing district. With a taxing district, the city and developer could borrow and pay the debt back over time through local taxes. The council also required key members of both negotiating teams to meet in person before the deadline and named Mayor John Cotugno as liaison between them. Vice Mayor Taylor Dingle noted at the meeting that 539 days had passed since the council chose ClearBlue.
In the big plan, the park, the playground and the pier are the parts still looking for money. At the sailing center, the same kinds of features sit in a $6.4 million budget that a nonprofit reported fully funded by August.
The public waterfront, piece by piece
The 2025 announcement called the sailing center part of the Three Corners development. The October 2026 Vero News report describes it as next to the Three Corners property. Either way, both projects share the same stretch of lagoon. Here's where the public features stand on each as of late October 2026:
| Feature | Proposed Three Corners plan | Pat Harris Community Sailing Center |
|---|---|---|
| Park space | Community park, financing still unresolved | Marine recreation park, open to the public |
| Playground | Planned, financing still unresolved | In the fully funded $6.4 million budget |
| Over-water access | Observation pier, 84-slip marina | Pier, docks and boat ramps |
| Gathering space | 400-seat event center, amphitheater | Upstairs hall with veranda and patio, built with event use in mind |
| Status | Negotiations extended to December 8 | Building completion projected for November 10 |
The Three Corners plan also includes restaurants, galleries, offices, two hotels and a floating tiki bar, and it would keep the old power plant building known as Big Blue as part of the design. None of that is under construction yet. The sailing center has its walls up.
Who Pat Harris was to the foundation
The building is named for a volunteer. According to Vero News, Pat Harris chaired the Youth Sailing Foundation for eight years and worked across its operations, teaching, helping in the boat shop and working regattas. As Vero News reported a few days later, the name came with a $1 million naming gift from the Miller Family Foundation, and the family chose to honor his volunteer work.
The new 4,000-square-foot shop gives the kind of boat-shop work Harris did a permanent home.
Getting on the water as an adult
The foundation's main mission is youth sailing, and its eight-week summer camp this year was its largest ever. Camp ran while construction went on around it. The adult side matters to the neighborhood too. Keiller said the adult program has 50 members and he thinks it can grow quickly to 200. Adult members can rent boats, and that rental money supports the kids' program.
The adult fleet is five Flying Scots. These are 19-foot sloops with a mainsail and a roller-furling jib, and the cockpit fits four adults comfortably. Keiller says the oldest boat is five years old. Adults learn in the same boat they'll rent later, and experienced sailors go through a check-out instead.
Here's what the foundation lists on its membership and adult programs pages:
- Adult Membership, 12 months, age 19 and up: $650
- Family Membership, 12 months: $750
- Adult Learn to Sail: $550 per person for 12 hours of instruction
- Guided Sailing: $170 minimum for two hours, then $85 an hour
- Private Lessons: $170 for two hours, then $85 an hour
Members reserve boats online, and the fleet includes the Flying Scot day-sailors. The membership page doesn't list a separate rental price. You can join online or reach the foundation at 772-492-3243 or [email protected].
The dates between now and mid-December
The weeks from late October to mid-December bring several dates for this part of the lagoon, along with the usual holiday events down the shore at Riverside Park:
- Thursday, October 29, through Saturday, October 31, 5:30 to 8:30 p.m.: Riverside Theatre's outdoor Loop concerts with the 20th Street Jazz Band, the Whipper Snappers Mountain Boys and Hot Sauce Moon, per the theatre's Loop calendar.
- November 10: the projected completion date for the sailing center building.
- December 8: the end of the city's latest negotiating extension with ClearBlue Holdings.
- December 10 through 12: Nutcracker on the Indian River at Riverside Theatre, followed by Nutcracker For All on December 12 and 13, per the theatre's events listing.
- December 11, 11 a.m.: the sailing center's planned grand opening, as Keiller described it in August.
The ClearBlue deadline and the sailing center's grand opening fall three days apart, on the same stretch of lagoon shore.
If you want to talk through what the changes at the foot of the 17th Street bridge could mean for your corner of Vero Isles, I'm glad to do that over coffee or on a walk by the water. I've watched this waterfront for more than fifty years and I follow it closely. Lori Anne Strazzulla. Let's Connect.
