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Yacht company redevelops old marina barn area

By Staff | Jan 12, 2011

Photos provided by DIVERSIFIED YACHT SERVICES The old Marina Barn for dry storage usage was torn down roughly a week before Christmas.

A piece of San Carlos Island history which had been around since the swing bridge days was recently knocked down to make way for redevelopment plans for a yacht company.

The old orange dry storage barn with MARINA written across the top of it and formerly owned by the Fort Myers Beach Marina is no longer a standing structure at 703 Fisherman’s Wharf. It was taken down in mid-December.

Diversified Yacht Services, Inc., which now owns the property where the barn stood,

felt the need to tear down the aging building before it came down voluntarily. The Levi family owners have already broke ground on plans to erect a new building at the former barn site which includes a 65-foot-tall structure featuring 27,000 feet of floor space and the ability to withstand hurricane winds of up to 150 miles an hour.

“We’ve begun a 14-month project and the site work will begin in the spring,” said Ryan Levi, chief operating officer for the family ownership. Levi said the project holds a cost of $20 million (including lien purchase) and the business is expected to double its present employee load of 20 when finished.

The plot will be cleared for the new structure for Diversified Yacht Services.

Founded as a mobile yacht service business for absentee owners, Diversified Yacht Services has been around since 1994 and owned by the Levi family for the past three years. For expansion purposes, the company moved to its present location roughly a year ago after purchasing the Fort Myers Beach Marina property from owner Todd Carroll of Carroll Properties of Fort Myers.

Carroll, who merged Fort Myers Beach Marina with another of his family’s owned properties -Gulf Star Marina- across the street near Doc Ford’s Rum Bar & Grille at 708 Fisherman’s Wharf, recalls seeing pictures of the swing bridge and the old barn standing in the background and commented on the longevity of the building.

“I couldn’t believe it was still standing after Hurricane Charley,” he said.

The Fort Myers Beach Marina dry storage barn had 80 slips to go along with 32 wet slips plus room for about 100 boats outside on the property.

When the new building is built, Diversified Yachts, which boosts Mercury products, will be able to provide dry storage and service facilities to work on boats from small flats to 105 footers (one of few businesses on Florida’s east coast to provide that service) as well as an enclosed paint booth for vessels. The business will also have the ability to haul boats up to 125 feet long out of the water -something not common to this area.

This is a model of the new building planned at the 703 Fisherman’s Wharf location.

Levi said the old structure which Beach residents grew accustomed to was not the only structure to be torn down. The Maryland Cottages also date back to the 1950s.

“There was eight cottages behind (the torn down dry storage barn),” said Levi. “Those are gone as well as a duplex and a waterside shed.”

According to Levi, it didn’t take much for the old barn to come down

“In a point of reference, the (Marina) building came down in about a day,” he said. “The little cottages took longer to bring down then that big building.”