Downtown Marina Lottery Plan

At Monday's City Council session, the finance director presented a marketing plan and a process for conducting a lottery to allocate the facility's 129 slips.

The plan will consist of promoting the marina at area boat shows, advertising and qualifying a list of individuals who have expressed interest in renting a slip.
Clearwater has already promoted the marina at the August 9th National Marina Day event hosted at the Municipal Marina on Clearwater Beach. Due to bad weather the event did not produce many prospects.

The City plans to participate in 2 more events to generate interest among local boaters before the marina is opened in the summer of 2009: the Tampa Boat Show on September 5th-7th, and the Saint Petersburg Boat Show/Strictly Sail on December 4th-7th. An ad campaign is also planned in the Gulf Mariner, a regional boaters magazine, and the St Petersburg Times. Promotional materials will also be placed at local boat retailers.

The city is hoping to fill the marina with 621 individuals who have asked to be placed on the list of interested parties back in 2007. An estimated 100 names may be duplicates. The city will be mailing a brochure and slip rental application to those on the list, and those who respond and provide a $500 reservation deposit will be entered into a blind lottery that will determine who gets a slip, and in what order they get to choose their slip. Clearwater residents will receive priority over non-residents in the lottery process.
No deposit was required to become a member of the list so a number of those may fail to respond when asked for a $500 deposit to enter the lottery. In addition, nearly 100 the names on the current list appear to be duplicates.
Clearwater plans a January 30, 2009, cutoff date for lottery registration and payment of the $500 deposit. The lottery will be a live event at the Harborview Center on March 14, 2009. Slip locations will be chosen at the event so attendance by the registrant or representative is mandatory. Deposits will be applied to first and last month's rent.
Should there not be enough slips to satisfy demand, those not awarded slips will be refunded their deposit, or be refunded only $400, leaving $100 as a deposit to preserve their place on a wait list.
The marina is projected to open on July 1, 2009.