This probably isn’t news to anybody who’s been paying attention, but The New York Post reports that dock space is so tight in Florida now that some owners are paying $1 million to reserve a slip even before their yacht is built.
With the influx of large yachts, owners are scrambling to find space to dock them (owners of 30-foot boats are having trouble, too). “South Florida has become a highly desirable place to live not just domestically, but globally,” Carolyn Stone, the deputy town manager of Palm Beach, told the paper. “There just weren’t enough slips to accommodate the bigger yachts.”
In the past few years, the demand for slips has outpaced the supply. Florida boat sales soared to $19 billion in 2022, according to the Marine Industries Association of South Florida, an increase of 197 per cent from the pre-Covid year of 2018.
The Town of Palm Beach marina (pictured) just completed a $40 million renovation, transforming itself into a world-class facility. Before the renovation it had just one slip for boats longer than 200 feet. Now it has 10. Leo Vecellio, the contractor, keeps his $60 million yacht Lady Kathryn V there; it’s 203-feet long and was built by Lurssen in 2011. Amaryllis is there also; it’s 257-feet long and purportedly owned by Russian billionaire Andrey Borodin.
The demand for slips there is so high that applicants pay $10,000 just to get their names on the waiting list. One owner paid more than $500,000 a year to reserve a slip there for two years, while his yacht is under construction.
One solution is to buy a house that has its own dock. The Palm Beach Post reports that one person paid almost $12 million for a home with 400 feet of waterfront so he could have a spot for his yacht. He plans to tear down the house.
To meet the demand, the City of West Palm Beach recently announced plans for a new $16 million facility there.
Local marinas used to be family affairs. But lately venture capital firms have realized their potential. Indeed, Safe Harbor Marinas, the largest marina operator in the world, bought the Rybovich property in West Palm Beach in 2021 and is now developing it.
Read more at https://nypost.com/2023/06/26/fla-struggles-with-superyacht-influx-dock-space-fetching-1m/?utm_source=flipboard&utm_content=NYPost%2Fmagazine%2FEverything+New+York+Post and see the video below:
