Want to Live on a Boat? Try an Auction
Want to Live on a Boat? Try an Auction
The famous pirate ship docked in Bonita Springs is looking for a new owner. Current owners of the ship are privately negotiating with several interested buyers and hope to come to an agreement soon according to a local realtor and an article in News-Press.com. This 20 year-old Bonita Springs landmark is looking for an agreement with a buyer before the end of the year. They are negotiating on whether to tear down or repurpose the ship and if it’s not privately sold it will enter into an international auction come mid-January.
“The ship and its 3.62 acres land on US 41 was sent to auction on December 7 but a swarm of media interest and phone calls after a story in the news – press caused the owners to postpone.” Nearly 30 interested buyers contacted the company in the 24 hours before the December 7 option and is currently valued at $1.35 million by the Lee County property appraiser.
This 16th-century Spanish galleon ship is passed by 55,000 cars daily so there’s plenty of exposure to the sale. After eight years of sitting vacant, the ship’s owners currently wanted to sell (Fort Myers-based Southeast USA). It’s currently an all-encompassing zoning situation so it could be torn down or it could be repurposed into a restaurant, hotel or dinner theater. Of course, it was built before Bonita Springs was a city so it does offer some unique zoning capabilities. Every detail of the ship was a replica of the Spanish treasure ship including the red and yellow stripes along the side which sailors used as an optical illusion to ward off pirates. The stripes tend to look like Canon portholes from a distance.
Currently the 4000 square-foot shack sits on top of an 11,000 ft.² building that housed everything from bingo hall to a nightclub to an upscale restaurant. The property also includes nearly 100 parking spaces. A local Naples group has expressed interest in turning the ship into a dinner theater while other groups would like to create a pirate themed prekindergarten school, restaurants, hotels, or even to demolish it and build a four-story hotel. Most locals would like to keep the ship and just repurpose it rather than tear it down since it has become such a landmark to the Bonita Springs waterway.
Interested in putting your two cents in? Call us up and we can speak to the listing Realtor® find more information on purchasing this piece of Bonita Springs history. Image by Google MAps
