Plan Would Send Queen Mary to Japan

Waving big dollars at cash-starved Long Beach city leaders, the operator of the Queen Mary on said Tuesday he wants to take the famed ship to Tokyo Bay for three to five years in return for making badly needed repairs.

Joseph Prevratil, who operates the Queen Mary under a lease from the city, proposed to spend $40 million on improvements to the 60-year-old ship and pay the city $5 million each year it is in Japan.

“The Queen Mary needs an overhaul. The price tag for that overhaul is $40 million,” Prevratil said at a news conference in the ship’s Grand Salon ballroom, a spacious room that resonates with the liner’s 1930s glamour.

The businessman said Japanese investors, whom he did not name, have assured him that the Queen Mary would be immensely profitable as a hotel, tourist attraction and casino.

City officials, who must approve the proposal, were decidedly cool toward it Tuesday, although they acknowledged the need to raise money to revitalize the ship.

Mayor Beverly O’Neill said she wants the Queen Mary to stay in Long Beach. But she said there are no sources of money readily available to restore the ship’s deteriorating electrical, plumbing and air-conditioning systems.

“I am trying to keep an open mind, but I would like to think that there might be other options to doing the necessary repairs,” she said. “I would hate to see it leave Long Beach.”

City Councilman Mike Donelon said, “I don’t want to see it go anywhere. When you drive down Ocean Boulevard, it is the city’s most recognizable landmark. It would leave a black hole if it was gone.”

Donelon added, “But if the ship is going to just sit there and deteriorate, we need to look at everything we can to see that that will not happen.”

City Manager James C. Hankla, in a letter to the City Council, said he plans to seek alternatives that would allow the Queen Mary to stay “at its present location for the foreseeable future.” He agreed repairs could cost $40 million.

Although city officials gave the plan less than a ringing endorsement, Prevratil was accompanied at the news conference by Greg Davy, an aide to Hankla, and Linda Howell-DiMario, president of the Long Beach Convention and Visitors Bureau. While neither endorsed the plan, their presence appeared to add credibility to the proposal.

Elsewhere in the city, Queen Mary lovers said they plan to fight the proposal.

“There is going to be protest, to say the least, if there is any attempt to move it to Japan,” said Deborah Prussel, a member of the Long Beach Historical Society.

A major concern of critics is that the old ship, which was gutted when it was turned into a tourist attraction, lost its ballast and is so top-heavy that it is unseaworthy. Prevratil said the ship would be surrounded by floats and towed to Japan. He said the plan is so safe that Lloyds of London agreed to insure the vessel for $65 million.

Prevratil said money for repairs would come from Japanese investors who assured him the ship would earn enough as an attraction in Tokyo Bay to repay the money in a year and a half. Plans call for the Grand Salon to be turned into a casino.

He did not want to identify his financial backers because of ongoing negotiations, Prevratil said.

Koji Suzuki, an official in the Port and Harbor Bureau of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, said: “Formal agreement hasn’t been reached yet. The Tokyo side’s response was that as much as possible, we would consider it positively. We have to consider costs, timing and Japanese laws and regulations before we accept it.”

Suzuki said the goal is to open the Queen Mary in Tokyo Harbor in the fall of 1998.

Prevratil also said Tuesday that he was willing to buy the ship outright for $22 million with the promise of keeping it in Long Beach. The city turned down offers of $20 million in 1992 from other investors who wanted to move the ship to the Far East.

The businessman also said he will ask for a new 66-year lease on the valuable 55-acre Queen Mary parcel at the mouth of the Los Angeles River as well as exclusive rights to the ship’s name, in part because he said there is interest in building a replica of the liner as a casino in Las Vegas.

The proposal was met with skepticism by some in City Hall because Prevratil did not reveal a financing plan or identify his financial backers. Some Long Beach officials criticized the city’s initial lease to Prevratil in 1992, contending that he was seriously undercapitalized.

City Auditor Gary L. Burroughs, one of those who questioned the original lease in 1992, said Tuesday that the ship lost $4 million between 1992 and 1995 under Prevratil’s management. Although Prevratil said he turned a $1.5 million profit on the ship in 1996, the auditor said he has not seen evidence of such a large profit.

Times researcher Makiko Inoue in Tokyo contributed to this story.

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60-Year Voyage

Here are highlights of the history of the Queen Mary of Long Beach tourism for more than a quarter century.

* 1936: cunard-White Star Line of England launches the $30-million ship, which quickly breaks the world record for fastest Atlantic crossing.

* 1939: Final peacetime voyage, carrying her largest number of passengers: 2,552, including Bob and Barbara Hope.

* 1940-1947: Operates as a troop transport ship, moving about 800,000 Allied troops between Europe and America.

* 1947: Returns to transporting civilians.

* 1967: No longer profitable, sails on final voyage.

* 1972: After four years and $66 million for refurbishing, Queen Mary hotel opens 150 of its 365 rooms.

* 1980: Entertainment firm Wrather Corp. signs a 66-year operating lease.

* 1988: Disney buys Wrather Corp. for $152 million.

* 1992: Disney abandons 55-acre site. Hotel and Queen Mary close.

* 1993: City of Long Beach resumes responsibility and Queen Mary reopens. Later that year RMS Foundation Inc. signs five-year lease with city and site is renamed Queen Mary Seaport.

* 1997: Plan to move the fabled liner to Tokyo Bay for three to five years is unveiled.