If tailgating wasn’t enough, now there’s plenty of room to sailgate.

City leaders cut the ribbon on the brand new Met Park Marina near the new Four Seasons on the Northbank with 78 new slips right across from Everbank Stadium.

It’s the kind of access to downtown that some boaters told me they’ve been heaving to for a long time.

“It’s just a game-changer for boaters,” said Lisa Almeida with Freedom Boat Club. “It’s amazing.”

Almeida considers herself the Boatanista of Jacksonville.

“I love boating,” said Almeida. “I am a stand for boating in the City of Jacksonville.”

However, for years, she says boating through downtown hasn’t always been smooth sailing.

“It wasn’t exactly the easiest thing,” said Almeida. “This marina was, pretty much, defunct. You only made reservations for the Jaguar game. There wasn’t really anywhere to go.

Jacksonville leaders tried to make it a lot easier Wednesday morning, as Almeida tied her boat up to watch Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan and city council members officially open the Met Park Marina.

“We are, of course, a city surrounded by water,” said Deegan. “Our gorgeous ocean, our beautiful river and all the tributaries around it. We want to take advantage of that.”

The Met Park Marina features 78 slips with electric and water hookups, plus a laundry room and showers for boaters.

The marina includes a ship store and will soon feature a restaurant next door – Asado Life – along the Riverwalk.

“To have boating be such an integral part of the city now, people can come down here, transient dock, go to the restaurants, go to the parks, walk downtown,” said Almeida. “I think we’re going to become a destination, which is going to be incredible for us.”

Pricing ranges from $5 for up to a four hour stay to $2.75 per foot for smaller boats to stay overnight and $3.25 per foot for boats over 60 feet on an overnight trip.

The maximum length for a boat at the marina is 400 feet, which, coincidentally or not, is the exact length of Shad Khan’s yacht, the Kismet.

In theory, it’d cost about $1300 per night to pull the Kismet into the new marina, or for anyone else out there who may have a 400-foot megayacht at their disposal.