Big Fix

When technology entrepreneur Richard Levi was searching for a maintenance facility for his 105-foot Sunseeker on the Gulf Coast, he came up empty.

Turns out that most boaters in Fort Myers and Naples with yachts more than 60 feet long must now travel to Miami and Fort Lauderdale for maintenance.

Richard Levi, chief executive of Illinois-based technology firm Levi, Ray & Shoup, started Diversified Yacht Services in 2007 to provide dockside maintenance to large boats. He and his son, Ryan Levi, are now spending $22 million to build a boat yard and marina at the foot of the Matanzas Pass Bridge in Fort Myers Beach to accommodate these luxury boats.

Five minutes from the Gulf of Mexico, it's one of the few sites with deep-water access. The Levis paid $6.5 million for two parcels totaling 2.5 acres in 2009 and started breaking ground recently on a 60,000-square-foot facility that's about the size of a football field.

Diversified Yacht Services does about $1.5 million in business annually now, but Ryan Levi, the company's 29-year-old chief operating officer, says the new boat yard should generate closer to $8 million once it's completed in 2012. The company's payroll will double to 40 people.

The new facility, designed by Sheeley Architects and built by Brooks & Freund, will be able to accommodate yachts as long as 120 feet. A specially made crane will lift the boats from the water and wheel them to the new building for overhauls and maintenance. The building includes a $1 million enclosed paint facility, also unique to this part of the Gulf Coast.

The Levis acquired the land for the marina in 2009, but they had to obtain permits from about 10 different government agencies in about a year, a process that might have taken as long as three years during the real estate boom. “It was a project everybody wanted,” Levi says.

The area around and under the Matanzas Pass Bridge has been undergoing a transformation away from its rough roots as a haven for unemployed shrimp fishermen and vagrants. A new Doc Ford's Rum Bar and Grille popular with tourists and locals has opened there and other businesses are planning to expand in the area.

By the time the facility opens next year, Levi says the economy may have recovered to the point where yacht owners will no longer forgo maintenance. “It'll be cyclical with the economy,” Levi says. “Everyone says things are getting better.”

Generally, yacht owners spend about 15% of the sales price on maintenance. So the owner of a $1 million boat should expect to spend about $150,000 a year on maintenance and repairs.

For several years, many boat owners have deferred maintenance and the industry has suffered. “Boat sales still haven't recovered a whole bunch,” Levi says. But yacht owners are starting to spend a little more now that the economy is on sounder footing. “That attitude is starting to change,” Levi says.