PHILADELPHIA -- The 990-foot SS United States served as a geographical marker of sorts on the Delaware River waterfront in South Philadelphia for almost 30 years. That is slated to change when the vessel is towed to Mobile, Alabama, for a final cleaning before it’s sunk into the Florida Panhandle. It is set to become the world’s largest artificial reef and will be turned into an underwater tourist attraction.
To followers of the ship, the departure may feel anticlimactic and unceremonious. Several owners tried and failed to redevelop the former ocean liner, but the financing never panned out.
One way to follow the rise and fall of the “Queen of the Seas,” which still holds the record, set in 1952, for the fastest Atlantic crossing by an ocean liner, is by the millions spent buying and maintaining it.
Here is a breakdown of how much publicly reported money went into the vessel, as documented by Inquirer and Daily News coverage, statements from past owners, and tax records.
How do you price a national treasure?
The luxury liner is perhaps best known for hosting stars like Marlon Brando and future presidents such as John F. Kennedy, but the ship doubled as a secret weapon for the U.S. Navy, were it needed. The ship could carry 14,000 troops and travel 40% of the globe’s circumference before needing to refuel. Creating a vessel that combined luxury and military efficacy was a $78 million — adjusted for inflation, $928 million in today’s dollars — endeavor.
With the advent of air travel, however, interest in the luxury cruise liner declined and so did its value. To many history buffs, the ship was a priceless national treasure despite being gutted before arriving in Philly. To redevelopers, the price of giving the vessel new life was, well, too expensive.
Marmara Marine, a New York-based company, is believed to have spent at least $2.6 million (or $5.8 million in today’s dollars) on the ship in 1992.
By 1998, a year after Linden, New Jersey, developer Edward A. Cantor purchased the ship at auction for $6 million (an inflation-adjusted $11.7 million), the asking price was $30 million.
It’s unclear if Cantor and fellow owners got anywhere near what they wanted when Norwegian Cruise Lines purchased the SS United States in 2003 — the total was never disclosed. When Norwegian put the vessel up for sale in 2009, it sought a whopping $20 million. The ship would ultimately be bought by the nonprofit the SS United States Conservancy for $3 million (or $4.2 million adjusted for inflation). Florida officials in Okaloosa County bought the SS United States for $1 million in October.
How much could redevelopment cost?
More than a skyscraper or building a new ship in some cases.
Owners of the ship seemed to have lofty ambitions, and with those ambitions came major price tags.
Among plans floated for the ailing vessel throughout its time in Philly were several that sought to restore it to its former glory as a functional cruise ship — all of which would have cost hundreds of millions of dollars. When Norwegian owned the ship in the early aughts, for example, its rehab plan was estimated to run upward of $500 million, about $150 million more than the cost of building a ship from scratch, Norwegian CEO Colin Veitch told The Inquirer in 2004.
By 2016, that estimated cost increased significantly, with cruise line operator Crystal Cruises putting a $700 million price tag on its own proposed rehabilitation project. But following a feasibility study, Crystal backed out, and planned to donate $350,000 to the conservancy instead, The Inquirer reported.
Other parties hoped to convert the ship’s massive hull into a floating hotel or casino. Perhaps the highest-profile push in that arena was a 2010 attempt to interest developers to move the ship to the ill-fated Foxwoods casino site along the Delaware River in South Philadelphia.
There, conservancy organizers proposed, the ship could be placed next to a planned 10-story parking garage, and be fitted with gaming floors, an event space, a museum, and a boutique hotel — to the tune of $450 million, The Inquirer reported in 2010. Ultimately, casino investors didn’t show interest in the idea, and in late 2010, the Foxwoods project itself fell by the wayside after the casino’s gaming license was revoked.
And then, of course, there were the rumors. The strangest came in 2000, when word spread that billionaire Bill Gates had shown interest in buying the SS United States and converting it into a floating Microsoft University — a piece of gossip that intensified amid news that Gates had also purchased an 8% stake in Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia, where the famed cruise liner had been constructed.
But Gates’ interest, it turned out, was too good to be true. As the Daily News reported in 2000, that rumor was started by an unnamed West Coast newspaper columnist who had floated the idea. Microsoft declined to comment at the time, and a spokesperson for then-owner Cantor said Gates wasn’t on the list of interested parties.
As recently as 2023, the conservancy estimated that a total rehabilitation would cost about $400 million. But by mid-2024, with its rent dispute in full swing, the plan to sink it off the coast of Florida took center stage, bringing along an estimated $10 million in project costs.
How much for a nonprofit to maintain a ship?
No entity has been a bigger champion of the SS United States than the nonprofit conservancy dedicated to saving it from the scrapyard. The conservancy bought the ship in 2011 with the help of former Inquirer owner and philanthropist H.F. “Gerry” Lenfest, who donated $5.8 million. According to the conservancy’s tax filings from 2010 to 2022, it raised at least $13.8 million. Roughly 80 cents of every dollar raised has gone to maintenance, insurance, and rent, according to the conservancy.
Donations ebbed and flowed during the years the conservancy possessed the ship, with the nonprofit making more than one SOS to avoid the scrapyard. The conservancy also got creative with its fundraising efforts, calling on donors to buy “virtual pieces of the ocean liner” at a rate of $1 per square inch in 2012.
That sounds like an NFT to us.
Amid all the ambitions and asks, by the time the ship is sunk, nearly $50 million will have been spent to buy, explore redevelopment of, and maintain the ship since it arrived in Philadelphia in 1996. Here are the rough totals.
$12.6 million: Buying the ship
During its time in Philly, the ship’s owners spent a combined $12.6 million — a total that would be even higher adjusted for inflation — at various points to buy the former luxury ocean liner, including Okaloosa County, which spent the least, getting the ship for $1 million.
$7 million: Exploring redevelopment
As the adage goes, you need to spend money to make money, and that’s just what interested parties did as they explored redeveloping the 990-foot ship incapable of self-propulsion — they just never got to the making money part.
Crystal Cruises signed an option agreement with the SS United States Conservancy in 2016 with ambitions to bring the ship back online as early as 2018. The cruise line took on docking and maintenance fees and spent $1 million on a feasibility study, which ultimately found redevelopment would be too challenging.
In 2023, New York City firm RXR Realty released a plan that reimagined the ship as a 1,000-room hotel, speakeasy, and museum. According to the conservancy, the engineering and financial feasibility work cost RXR about $6 million. Still, the $400 million plan never materialized.
$21.1 million: Rent, insurance, and maintenance
The SS United States has been burning through money since the day it was towed to Philly for $1.4 million. Between the initial tow, Cantor’s and Norwegian’s public comments on how much they were paying for rent over the years, and the $70,000 a month the conservancy paid in rent, insurance, and maintenance, it cost at least $21.1 million to keep the ship in Philly.
$40.7 million: Total sunk costs
The SS United States has faced serious financial hurdles since it arrived in Philadelphia nearly three decades ago. Since it became a Philly resident, at least $40.7 million has been spent on the ship across several generations of ownership.
Yet even more money is slated to go to the ship as it embarks on its next chapter. The vessel’s new owners in Okaloosa County plan to spend millions to clean, transport, and sink the vessel into the warm waters of the Florida Panhandle coast. The county also plans to open a land-based museum focused on the SS United States.
As it turns out, it’s not cheap to sink a ship. Okaloosa County officials have set aside at least $9.1 million for their plans.
©2024 The Philadelphia Inquirer, LLC. Visit at inquirer.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
