The living coral reef just off South Beach is one step closer to becoming a protected marine park after the Miami Beach City Commission voted unanimously to pursue a state designation for the site.

Urban Paradise Guild, a local nonprofit known as UPG, is leading the campaign for what would be called the Neon Reef Marine Park. The proposed protected area covers 222 acres stretching from the South Pointe jetty north to the Neon Reef ridge, marked by 14 boundary buoys along a 2-mile seaward edge. The boundary extends shoreward to the waterline.

Under the proposal, motorized vessels would be excluded from the zone over the living reef. Mooring buoys placed just outside the boundary would let boaters access the area without dropping anchor on coral. UPG and residents documented boating incidents, groundings, anchor damage, and close calls with swimmers on the nearshore reef, according to UPG's project page. That evidence helped move the commission to act.

The reef is unusual for a major city. It sits close enough to swim to from the beach. In most of Miami-Dade County, reef systems are miles offshore and accessible only by boat. The site hosts parrotfish, sergeant majors, nurse sharks, turtles, rays, seahorses, and angelfish. Nova Southeastern University placed artificial rock piles there in the late 1990s, and coral has been building habitat on them since.

The proposed park also encompasses an underwater public sculpture and artificial reef called the Art Reef, where coral is growing and fish have already moved in.

City to file state application; no hearing date set

The City of Miami Beach is preparing its application to the State of Florida. No hearing date or public comment period has been announced. Residents who want to support the application can sign a petition at neonreefsouthbeach.good.do.

"Neon Reef" documentary boosted public support for protection

Director Alex Mitow's documentary "Neon Reef" premiered at the 43rd Miami Film Festival in April 2026. The film follows reef advocates Patrick Breshike and David Grieser as they dive the reef and fight to protect it. Miami-Dade County Commissioner Vicki Lynn Lopez and Mayor Daniel Diaz de la Portilla attended the screening and offered recognition.

Separately, a nonprofit called REEFLINE is building a seven-mile-long underwater sculpture park and artificial reef along Miami Beach's coastline, funded in part by a $5 million bond approved by city voters. Its first phase placed 22 life-sized concrete cars about 800 feet offshore in late October 2025, with plans to seed them with 2,200 native corals grown in a Miami lab.

"What that's going to do is accelerate the formation of a coral reef ecosystem," said Colin Foord, co-founder of Coral Morphologic, who runs the coral lab. "It's going to attract a lot more life and add biodiversity and really kind of push the envelope of artificial reef-building here in Florida."

The state application for the Neon Reef Marine Park has no announced timeline. The petition is open at neonreefsouthbeach.good.do.