The SS United States, hailed as the fast transoceanic liner when it was built in the early 1950s, will be towed from Philadelphia to Norfolk as early as next week ahead of a sinking next year at the world’s largest artificial reef off the Florida Gulf Coast.
In a subdued ceremony Saturday in Philadelphia, Okaloosa County, Florida, took title to the historic ship, effectively ending a three-year long legal struggle between the non-profit that owned SS United States and Penn Warehouse and Distribution, the owner of the pier where it has been berthed for years.
The dispute centered on the doubling of the berthing charges at the same time as the SS United States Conservancy, established in 2011, was still trying to raise funds to preserve the liner as a museum/hotel, similar to the Queen Mary’s operation in Long Beach, Calif.
The new charge was $1,700 per day.
Earlier ideas to restore the liner as a cruise ship or turn it into a pier-side condominium project were scrapped. In 2023, the conservancy, RXR and MCR Hotels sought New York City approval to move the ship to Pier 76 on the Hudson River and transform it into a 1,000-room hotel with a land side park and museum.
Again, the project did not attract additional investors and win political support in the city.
Susan Gibbs, conservancy president, said in a statement on the sale of the ship: “Unable to save the SS United States in her current state and under a binding court order, we faced the painful but unavoidable choice between scrapping America’s Flagship or converting her into an artificial reef in tandem with a land-based museum. We chose the latter as the most dignified path.”
Federal District Court Judge Anita Brody ruled in mid-September that the sale could proceed between the conservancy and the county. The court order for the ship to leave the pier by Sept. 12 was held in abeyance, and the settlement resulted from the court supervised mediation.
In late September, the Okaloosa County Board of Commissioners approved spending $1 million to buy the ship. The county and its private partners in the fishing/sports diving venture have allocated an additional $9.1 million to clean, transport and sink SS United States off Destin-Fort Walton Beach. The water’s depth in that location is 180 feet, county officials reported.
Part of the deal includes creating a land-based museum dedicated to the SS United States.
In her statement Saturday, Gibbs, the grand-daughter of the ship’s designer, added: “After five years of intensive planning and investment, we demonstrated with our development partners that the ship could create thousands of jobs and generate millions in economic revenue, but the difficulty of securing the planned pier location, and the unwillingness of government entities to prioritize the project prevented this exciting plan from being launched.”
The ship is almost 1,000 feet long and a pier that could accommodate a ship of that size is not readily available.
Paul Mixon, chairman of the Okaloosa County Board of County Commissioners, told The Philadelphia Inquirer at the ceremony that he was proud of Florida’s ability to “keep that legacy going” through the museum and reefing of the ship.
The museum will receive the group’s collections of original artifacts and artwork from the ship, as well as at least one of the vessel’s iconic funnels.
The county and investors are planning to spend $1 million to establish the museum and visitors’ center, the Get the Coast online news outlet reported.
Coast Guard permits also must be secured to move the ship to Norfolk.
Newport News Shipbuilding produced the liner that was also meant to double as a troop transport if needed. As a liner, it would carry 2,000 passengers; as a transport up to 14,000 service members. Long Beach’s Queen Mary, built in Scotland in the 1930s, doubled as a transport in World War II. As a passenger liner, it would carry about 2,100 passengers and did carry more than 16,600 troops in one transit.
