St. Petersburg Marina - The Rest of the Story

[markpj23]

In another thread here we learned that the ST Pete municipal marina was opening a new dock having both 44 and 55ft slips available. So today we went over to check into that... considering moving the boat to FL.

New dock is not quite finished. Contractor nows says 2/25 they will be ready. Dock looks fine, 50 amp service, nothing weird about the location at all. Well protected and good depth.

I had been curious though... why are they having to advertise to fill these slips? Everyone knows that public slips are becoming very scarce - especially in the Tampa Bay area since we lost the Bahia Beach complex to condo development. So why am I able to walk in today and rent a slip?

Had a nice chat with the dockmaster about this. They have a 60 month - yes 5 year - waiting list for slips at the other docks. The new dock EPA permit specified NO LIVEABOARDS POSSIBLE - EVER. The other docks are limited to a percentage of liveaboards, so at some point in the future your slip may become liveaboard eligible. Not so at the new dock.

Plus, if you've been on the waiting list for a slip, and you take one at the new dock, you are dropped to the end of the list for liveaboard potential slips should you still hope to move aboard. The other caveat is that you cannot ever get your hull scrubbed while at the new dock. Not an unsurmountable obstacle, but some see that as an inconvenience.

So last December they started calling people on the waiting list. They were a bit surprised that they had no takers and then realized that the rules were working against them. So today, almost ready to open the new dock and they are only about 40% rented.

Oh, and the kicker that made up our minds not to move there, is that a new City Ordinance now prohibits the transfer of the slip to the new owner when a boat is sold. This was done in an effort to reduce the excessive wait time for slips.

I'll just bet the brokers and people trying to sell their boats just love that one. Makes St Pete more like San Diego..... sure, we'll sell ya a boat, but where are you gonna park it?

Guess we're just gonna have to go cruise...