MASS COMMUNICATIONS SPECIALIST 2ND CLASS ELIZABETH WILLIAMS / NAVY
Retired businessman Paul Troxell hopes to turn the decommissioned carrier JFK into an interactive museum in downtown Miami or Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Group has big plans for JFK carrier museum
By Mark D. Faram -
Staff writer
Sunday December 9, 2007
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. Finally, somebody wants the aircraft carrier formerly known as the John F. Kennedy.The Navy decided it didn't want the ship anymore and spent two years convincing Congress to let it go.Once decommissioned, the ship was to go to Philadelphia to be maintained in a ready state until the next new carrier hits the fleet.But that was a no-go.
The slip where the JFK was to spend its retirement was not dredged deep enough to accommodate the 38-year old, 82,000-ton, 1,052-foot-long ship, so now it languishes in Norfolk, a few piers down from where today's operating carriers come and go.Now, it seems, people do want the Kennedy, and they were here in Florida the whole time.
If retired businessman Paul Troxell has his way, the JFK will eventually become a tourist attraction in downtown Miami, or Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.Troxell, a Boston native, originally investigated taking the ship to Beantown once the Navy retired it, but decided the weather would make it a tough sell to tourists and even tougher to maintain, so he turned his sights closer to home in South Florida.
We think either location will work just fine,said Rick Hoffman, a retired Navy surface warfare officer who is serving as a consultant to Troxell's organization, the newly formed JFK Memorial Foundation, and its companion Web site,
www.savetheJFK.com.The foundation has also enlisted the help of retired Vice Adm. Diego Hernandez, the Kennedy's tenth skipper and a Miami resident, to help pave the way.
Hernandez hopes to energize the ship's estimated 500,000 alumni in the effort to save the ship and make it a profitable business venture.The group is modeling much of its plan and hope for success on the USS Midway Museum, which has become a fixture on the San Diego waterfront in the past few years, as well as profitable one, netting a $14 million profit in 2006, according to the museum.
Organizers want the Kennedy to be an interactive museum, a learning center that would highlight not just the ship, but its presidential namesake as well a fact that foundation officials see as key to selling this idea to the public. Many people will come just to see a Navy super carrier, they say, but hope many more would show up to visit something named for John F. Kennedy.
Troxell says he has sunk about $300,000 of his own money into developing the business plan, which includes an innovative idea to keep the ship safe from the hurricanes that regularly batter Florida's coasts.The plan calls for the building of a massive concrete basin around the ship's berth.
Heavy steel beams would be sunk deep in the concrete and the ship would be welded to the beams, essentially making it a waterborne building, capable of withstanding heavy seas without damaging the ship or the adjacent pier.
Another novel way to preserve the carrier would be to fill its basin with fresh water, thus reducing much of the wear and tear caused by saltwater on the ship's hull. Along with giving the appearance that ship is still floating, Troxell hopes the clear water of the basin could become a diving attraction, allowing sport divers to swim beneath the hull and view the ship's massive screws.
But the Kennedy isn't yet available for donation from the Navy. It's tied to the pier in Norfolk, Va. by mooring lines and to the Navy by Congressional ruling.According to language in the 2007 Defense Budget, the Navy must maintain the Kennedy in a state in which it could be activated in a national emergency, if needed, before the new Nimitz-class nuclear-powered carrier George H.W. Bush is ready to join the fleet in 2009.Troxell and his associates say they can wait.
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Contributed,
YNCS Don Harribine, USN(ret)