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Don's Dock has been a mainstay at John's Pass in Madeira Beach for decades, and now the private ownership group that bought the property two years ago is hoping for a return on its investment.
Christopher Leonard has faced several challenges in marketing the 6,098-square-foot property, which includes a 1,200-square-foot retail space on a dock, gas tanks with a combined capacity of 14,000 gallons and nine deep-water boat slips. The property is listed for $1.45 million.
Leonard says the first hurdle is the lack of similar properties that could be used as a comparable for price. “We can't look at a retail location in a similar location,” Leonard says, “because there is no similar location.”
This has led to the broker lopping $300,000 off the original price, which was $1.75 million. “We looked at future revenues and that's the price that made the most sense,” Leonard explains.
Further, because of the odd nature of the site, the future revenue potential of the site is hard to discern. For example, if the site continues to function as a bait shop and refueling station, revenues would come from fishermen gassing up and purchasing their provisions before an excursion.
But if other uses are considered, like scrapping the fuel aspect all together and having the site exist solely as a retail location for tourists, a whole new revenue stream — and potential snags of the model — must be considered. The potential tourist revenue can hardly be measured seeing as the recession has tempered tourism in the region. However, as Leonard explains, the Bureau of Economic Research forecasts population growth in the region and tourism has begun to recover.
Leonard spent weeks pondering potential uses for the property, which he says is actually what he has had to do for conventional retail properties because of the downturn. “It's not like we have had to do anything wildly different with Don's Dock,” Leonard says, “I saw a retail property sell to someone who turned it into a gun range.”
One potential use, which Leonard says has the highest possible future revenue, is a demonstration site for boat manufacturers. The location could serve as the perfect satellite for a boat distributer looking for a launching point to coax potential buyers. In this case, the buyer would use the fuel capacity, although Leonard says slips could be subleased and it can still sell gas to outside buyers.
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