The ownership of Marineland Dolphin Adventure has been tied up in court proceedings for months. Now, a nonprofit organization run by local people will take over its operations. | News4Jax, LoopNet
Published on November 12, 2025 at 12:47 pm
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A bankruptcy court on Wednesday decided the fate of Marineland Dolphin Adventure.
Ownership of the oceanarium along the border of St. Johns and Flagler counties will shift from the bankrupt Dolphin Co. to a group of local environmental and dolphin activists.
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That group, called #1 Apex Association, includes Felicia Cook, who previously served as the park’s director; Jack Kassewitz, a dolphin communication researcher; and Jon and Barbara Rubel, a Clay County couple who stepped in at the last minute to fund the nearly $7 million purchase of the park.
The aquarium offers opportunities for people to learn about and get up close and personal with dolphins, tortoises and other marine animals.
Had the Apex Association not won the auction for the park, a developer likely would have. Texas-based Delightful Development and Hutson Cos., the Northeast Florida developer behind communities like Silverleaf, submitted bids for $7.1 million and $3.5 million respectively to buy the park.
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Bankruptcy Judge Laurie Selber Silverstein approved Apex’s bid to buy the park during a hearing Wednesday morning. She noted that the deal wasn’t a simple purchase of a business — living creatures were involved.
“This isn’t equipment; this isn’t widgets. This isn’t a retail store that you can just shut the doors on one day,” Silverstein said. “This is a business about animals.”
That’s part of why Apex was ultimately selected. Its plans to keep the park open, keep the marine animals in place and maintain existing employees was factored into the bidding.
Speaking after the judge’s decision, Jon Rubel said his team is “very pleased with the results of the hearing this morning.”
A new day for Marineland
Then known as Marine Studios, Marineland first opened its doors in 1938. Over the years, ownership changed hands a number of times.
The Mexico-based Dolphin Co. bought Marineland in 2019 from the Georgia Aquarium. That’s when Felicia Cook started working as the park’s director.
She served as the head of the park until earlier this year, when The Dolphin Co.’s financial issues began to affect Marineland’s operations. She says she quit because she couldn’t stand to keep firing employees, and she wanted to see a new owner take the reins of the park.
“My last day was Jan. 31,” Cook told Jacksonville Today. “My first day looking for investors to buy back Marineland was Feb. 1. I could not do that as an employee.”
Cook says Marineland’s switch from corporate management to a nonprofit organization will open the park up to new research opportunities and community involvement.
“The whole goal is that we are educating people to understand how valuable our oceans are and the creatures that are in them and how we can work together as humans and those animals to create a better world,” Cook said.
Dolphin researcher and activist Jack Kassewitz, one of the people working with Cook’s team, says the goal is for treatment of the dolphins to be as humane as possible, too.
“It will be a completely different looking place,” he said. “We want to be part of the change that’s necessary with dolphinariums all around the world.”
In addition to the sale of the park, the judge approved a request by Theater of the Sea, a family-owned aquarium in the Florida Keys, to purchase three of Marineland’s dolphins.
According to reporting by WMBB in Panama City, those dolphins — a mother and her two offspring named Sandy, Capri and Soleil — were moved to Marineland this year from the now-defunct Gulf World aquarium in Panama City Beach, which also was owned by The Dolphin Co.
