Marina for Sale!

[Bad Obsession]

Just found out that Stanfords Marina in Colonial Beach is for sale for about 1 million dollars. I wish I could buy the place because it would be cool to run and own a marina. You will never become rich off of owning one but if you could keep your head above water it would be the coolest job for me.

Could you imagine owning your own marina? What cool things would you do? What things would you avoid? What services would you like to provide?

 

[KD3PC]

It is a wonderful marina, old school but near everything. My father in law kept is old wooden trumpy there and they would call him if anything was amiss. Super quality wood work, and although Clarence died a few years back, his son and the widow are to be commended for keeping it going.

At that price it is a steal compared to other marinas on the river for sale with less nearby

 

[Bad Obsession]

The son died this past year. That is why the marina is for sale.

I wonder how viable a business is like that.

 

[Pops]

I'll work for you for a slip, food, and beer money (if you need an old guy to do not much, I'm not good for much)

 

[Ross]

Our marina recently changed hands and the new owners have invested about a million dollars in new bulkheads and utilities. And they still have a ways to go with new breakwaters and dock repairs. This is for a 300 slip marina. I rather expect the slip rates to go up. It is $1300 per year for a 30 foot boat now. That is average about half the slips are smaller than mine. Fortunately it is also a family affair so their payroll expense is reasonable.

 

[Jim Seamans]

Hey Bad if you want to find out

Come over and talk to the guys who took over our marina. I think they might be breaking even or less. They have stopped selling diesel, it is not a money maker. Regulations and insurance is a ball buster...

 

[Ed Schenck]

For eight years I was in the same marina on Lake Erie. What always struck me was how really hard the work is. It is very difficult to find good staff that can or want to work that hard. Of course it is a little different when you have to take every boat out of the water in the fall and refloat them in the spring. And then you have to move all of the docks to a secure winter location and put those back. No thanks.

 

[Bad Obsession]

LOL...Jim....The guy that is moving from CB to Cobb stated that one of his reasons for moving is that the fuel dock is right there at the Marina! ROTFL. That is Ironic!

 

[Bad Obsession]

I still think that it would be cool to own one that mainly dealt with docking. The repair work and other things are a pain, but just having the docks would be a cool one.

I have always thought that it would be cool to have a marina designed like a resort. A mix between a marina and a camp ground. Similar to Spring Cove Marina in some ways but provide a good family environment so that people could come in to the docks and spend a few days. Do outdoor movies at night, have really nice facilities, putt putt golf on site, and other things like that.

 

[Ross]

I have observed the operation of our marina for about ten years and listened to the gripes voiced by the slip holders. Our marina operates on two fulltime yard men and a woman in the office six days a week. The yard man has been there long enough that when he started there was one dock and a fish market and it was a watermens marina with a few pleasure boats. Condos have replaced the fish and crab house, the fishery has collapsed, the last commercial fisherman retired two years ago and moved to Colorado.
The marina needs dredging. They have built all the waterfront land with condos and most of the boats are winter stored under the power transmisson lines that cross the property.

 

[Stu Jackson]

When folks we met who owned a marina

returned our exclamation at how lucky there were to "be able to do that" with a blank stare, we couldn't understand. "How'd YOU like to be on call 24/7, have no vacation time during vacation time, and have to listen to XYZ "dumb" comments from people who don't know how to take care of their own property, no less make any effort to do basic and sensible things, and then blame YOU for things that go wrong with their boats?"

 

[KD3PC]

We haven't owned a marina, but did own a dragstrip. Everyone should "work with the Public" to see and understand that view. Sad to hear that the son died, I don't think he was that old. The marina would likely be worth the asking price, if one did want to COndo the water, but the politics of CB would make it tough unless you are a local. If you had enough family to run the place, it would be do-able, but to hire and manage enough would be painful. Sad to see it go, we used to bicycle around the bay to get pizza and crabs.

All the best,

 

[Bad Obsession]

The son died of a really freak and strange thing. I don't know the whole details but it was rather sudden and unexpected. This was about a year ago. It is sad because I went to Highschool with him. He was a few years younger than I was.

If you quit being full service and just offered haul outs and slips it would almost be do-able. Having mechanics around is tough because they are expensive and finding a good, trustworthy one is tough. You could always have an outside person that the people called to come onto the property to fix things if need be.

I am no where in the ballpark of getting involved in something like that. For me it seems too risky and too much to loose if it doesn't work out.

 

[tommays]

Up here you would have to do a 3 million dollar cleanup to sell IT