Maximo Marina owners throttle back on sale, continue upgrades
By Ashley Gurbal Kritzer
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: Apr 28, 2015

The Chicago investors who listed Maximo Marina for sale in late 2014 have decided to keep it and continue to pump millions into improving the property.

Bixby Bridge Capital took title to the marina in 2009 after acquiring a bank note on it. In November, the group retained Cushman & Wakefield of Florida Inc. to market it.

The marina includes 582 boats slips and 45 acres of land - 34 of which are submerged - and a 32,000-square-foot commercial building in at 4801 37th St. S. in South St. Petersburg.

The marina has the depth and space to accommodate boats up to 100 feet, and the submerged land includes the basin and channel leading out to open water.

Bixby Principal Steven Fass said there was interest in the marina, but none from a buyer who wanted to pay what Bixby was looking to get for the property. Bixby took the property off the market about two months ago, Fass said.

Fass declined to give specific dollar figures but said Bixby has already invested "seven figures" in replacing the fixed and floating docks on the southwest corner of the marina.

"We would have loved to have sold it to someone who appreciated that value," he said, "but those buyers don't exist today."

Instead, Fass said, Bixby plans to own and operate the marina for the long term and plans to invest an additional "eight figures" in continued renovations. Those renovations include "newer, nicer slips" to modernize the marina and make it more appealing to boaters.

"Our firm has the capacity to do that," he said. "The amount of people out there that have the capacity and will to do that are not that strong in the marina space."

Bixby has owned some of the properties in its portfolio for more than 35 years, Fass said, and the group now considers Maximo Marina one of its long-term assets. "We own several other marinas as well," he said, "and decided to keep owning this one."

Ashley Gurbal Kritzer is a reporter for the Tampa Bay Business Journal.