SS United States’ tentative agreement to sink ship off Florida’s coast is in limbo

The stewards of the SS United States, the 990-foot dead ship that has sat across from the South Philadelphia Ikea for decades, struck a tentative agreement last week to sink the vessel off the warm gulf waters of Florida. Now, that deal appears to be in limbo just as the deadline to reach an agreement nears.

The five-person Okaloosa County Board of Commissioners was supposed to ratify the contract Tuesday that would approve up to $9 million to buy, transport, and eventually sink the ship to create an artificial reef with its hollowed-out frame along Northwest Florida’s Destin-Fort Walton Beach shores.

But just as the meeting got underway, County Administrator John Hofstad said there had been a “wrinkle with pier operators” and asked the vote be postponed by two weeks to “work out issues.”

A spokesperson for the SS United States Conservancy directed questions to the Okaloosa commissioners. Nick Tomecek, Okaloosa County’s public information officer, said the county continues to work with the conservancy and “until a deal is finalized it would be inappropriate to make any additional comment.”

Craig Mills, an attorney for Penn Warehousing, the ship’s landlord — which has been itching to rid itself of its long-standing tenant — said he had not heard about the delay and had “no insight on what Okaloosa County is doing.”

Okaloosa County has been keen on making Destin-Fort Walton Beach “the dive capital of the state of Florida and artificial reef capital of the United States” since 2022, according to county Tourist Development Department documents.

The county looked to neighboring Pensacola for inspiration. The USS Oriskany, an 888-foot ship, was sunk in 2006 off the Pensacola shore to become the largest artificial reef in the world.

According to the Okaloosa tourism department’s pitch to its county board, the Oriskany acquisition has made the region a fishing and diving destination, drawing about 10,000 visitors annually. Those visitors, said the Tourism Development Department, spent an annual $3.6 million on lodging, food, and other local services as of 2015.

The commissioners’ decision to postpone a vote on the deal comes at a critical juncture for the SS United States Conservancy.

The conservancy had been in a rent dispute with its Pier 82 landlord since 2021, when Penn Warehousing doubled the ship’s daily dockage fee. The issue went to federal court, and a judge gave the conservancy until Sept. 12 to come up with a plan to move the ship.

The ship’s stewards had long tried to save the vessel from the scrapyard, hoping for a white knight to step in and help them redevelop the ship into a multipurpose floating hotel and museum. Over the years, the financing to rehabilitate a ship that is incapable of self-propulsion and requires environmental remediation proved to be a hard sell.

The conservancy was adamant and hopeful that it could, at the very least, find a temporary berth by its September deadline to continue exploring redevelopment options. Yet some options — the Philadelphia Navy Yard, the Virginia Port Authority, and the Maryland Port Authority, to name a few — were quickly ruled out due to a lack of suitable docks.

As recently as the weekend, the conservancy was open about how reefing was not its first choice and it stressed that despite some media reports, the deal was far from done.

“There are multiple discussions underway and many unresolved matters that make the outcome and timing uncertain at this point,” read a conservancy statement on Instagram last week.

Should the terms of the agreement stick, the SS United States is slated to be sold for $1 million with the project reaching up to $9 million for towing, cleaning, and sinking the ship. The tourism department said that it has identified about $5 million in partnership contributions to help offset costs but that the county would provide up to $1 million as partial support for a land-based museum the conservancy has long advocated for.

In a brief to the county commissioners, the tourism department said it identified three areas that have the depth, clearance requirements, and permitting to make the sinking of the SS United States work. The three locations, which were not specified other than to say they were 25 miles from shore, would be able to accommodate divers of varying skill levels.

The board does not meet again until Sept. 17, past the judge’s deadline to have a plan ironed out. What’s more, the tentative purchase and sale agreement stated the deal was “wholly contingent upon approval of this Agreement by the Board on or before September 4.”