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What's In Store For Long Beach's Iconic Queen Mary?
The City of Long Beach is still trying to figure out what to do with the Queen Mary, which came under its ownership after its original owner went bankrupt.
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It's been a couple of months since the city of Long Beach took over operations of the Queen Mary.
That happened after the iconic ship's most recent operator filed for bankruptcy early this year. When the Queen Mary's lease went up for auction, there were no bidders.
Long Beach Post reporter Kelly Puente has been looking into allegations that a previous operator, Urban Commons, mishandled funds and failed to do some $40 million in urgently needed repairs.
So what's next for the Queen Mary?
Puente says the city is now considering its options. One possibility: Transfer control of the ship to the Harbor Commission, which oversees the Port of Long Beach.
"They've said that the harbor commissioners could be in a better position to help develop the land and make decisions and would be using the harbor budget for that, and it's been a little controversial with some of the unions and stakeholders in the port not wanting the port to use its money to repair the ship because we're looking at hundreds of millions of dollars at least."
City officials say their goal is to reopen the ship by early next year.
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You can read more on the Queen Mary in the Long Beach Post's investigation — called "Shipwrecked."
Corrected August 11, 2021 at 9:46 AM PDT
A previous version of this story said Urban Commons was the operator at the time of the bankruptcy earlier this year. The Eagle Hospitality Trust, which was created by Urban Commons to raise money for the project, was the operator at the time.
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