The Queen Mary is owned by the City of Long Beach, California. The city bought the retired Cunard ocean liner for roughly $3.5 million in 1967, and it has remained a municipal asset ever since.1LAist. The Queen Mary Turns A Profit After Years of Debt And Disrepair The ship is permanently docked at Pier H in Long Beach Harbor, where it operates as a floating hotel, event venue, and tourist attraction.
How the City Holds the Ship
The Queen Mary is classified as municipal property. Any major structural decision or capital expenditure requires a vote by the Long Beach City Council, and the ship cannot be sold without formal council approval. For practical purposes, Long Beach taxpayers are locked into ownership for the foreseeable future.
Oversight is split between two city departments. The Department of Public Works manages physical repairs and infrastructure upgrades to the vessel.2Signal Tribune. Critical Repairs for the Queen Mary Enter Final Stage The Economic Development Department handles the business side, including the contract with the company that runs hotel operations.3Long Beach Business Journal. Long Beach Has Spent $45 Million Fixing the Queen Mary, and More Is Needed
Who Runs the Ship Day to Day
Although Long Beach owns the Queen Mary, it does not operate the ship itself. Evolution Hospitality, a Southern California management firm, handles daily operations under a five-year agreement the city council approved in 2022.4City of Long Beach. City of Long Beach – File 22-0702 The contract covers the hotel, tours and exhibits, parking, restaurants, bars, retail, and onboard events. Evolution receives a portion of revenue, while the city keeps a majority of the net profits generated at the site.5Signal Tribune. Queen Mary’s Longtime Caretaker Evolution Hospitality Will Enter 5-Year Agreement to Manage Ship
This structure matters for the ownership question. Evolution operates the ship as the city’s agent, not as a leaseholder. The company must provide regular financial reports to the council, and the city retains control over the asset.4City of Long Beach. City of Long Beach – File 22-0702 That is a deliberate break from how Long Beach ran the ship for most of its time at Pier H.
The Queen Mary reopened to visitors on a limited basis in December 2022 and held a broader grand reopening in June 2023.6City of Long Beach. City of Long Beach Marks One-Year Return of the RMS Queen Mary, Shares Updates and Plans for a Positive Future It is now fully operational, with overnight stays, guided tours, dining at the Observation Bar and other restaurants, and seasonal events including the Dark Harbor Halloween festival and a ship-wide New Year’s Eve celebration.7The Queen Mary. Events
Why the Ship Isn’t Leased Anymore
For most of the ship’s time in Long Beach, private companies held long-term leases and took on both the business and the physical maintenance of the aging vessel. Every major leaseholder eventually collapsed financially, which is why the city now hires a manager instead.
Joe Prevratil signed a lease to run the ship in 1993. The arrangement lasted until 2006, when the city demanded several million dollars in unpaid rent and Prevratil filed for bankruptcy. Save the Queen LLC bought the lease through the bankruptcy auction and defaulted on its loan in 2009.8Long Beach Post. Queen Mary Operator to Auction Lease for Ship After Filing for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy
The most ambitious attempt was Urban Commons, which signed a 66-year lease in 2016 and later created Eagle Hospitality Trust to list on the Singapore Stock Exchange. Urban Commons repeatedly failed to pay rent and did not meet its other financial obligations. In 2020, Eagle Hospitality’s managers terminated the master lease agreements, effectively removing Urban Commons as operator.8Long Beach Post. Queen Mary Operator to Auction Lease for Ship After Filing for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Each failure left maintenance backlogs that compounded, and the ship’s physical condition deteriorated badly.9Long Beach Post. Queen Mary’s Future in Limbo as Operator’s Bankruptcy Hearings Are Underway Ownership never changed through any of this. The ship stayed with the city.
The State’s Role Under the Tidelands Trust
Long Beach owns the ship, but the water and submerged land beneath it belong to the State of California. When California became a state in 1850, it acquired all tide and submerged lands within its borders. The state later granted the tidelands beneath the Queen Mary to the City of Long Beach through a series of legislative acts dating to 1911, which made the city a trustee of state-owned land rather than its outright owner.10California State Lands Commission. City of Long Beach
Under the public trust doctrine, any revenues generated from the use of those granted lands must be reinvested back into the trust. The money stays separate from the city’s general fund and cannot be used for unrelated municipal purposes. That is why Long Beach pays for Queen Mary expenses out of a distinct Tidelands Operating Fund.11City of Long Beach. City to Conduct Critical Repairs to the Queen Mary Beginning in February 2022 The California State Lands Commission retains jurisdiction over all granted tidelands under Public Resources Code Section 6301, giving the state authority to step in if the city mismanages the site or misuses trust revenues.12California State Lands Commission. Granted Public Trust Lands The city must also file an annual financial statement for its trust lands by December 31 each year.10California State Lands Commission. City of Long Beach
So the full ownership picture has two layers. The vessel itself is a municipal asset of Long Beach. The water and seabed it rests on are state property held by the city in trust.
How a British Ocean Liner Ended Up Owned by a California City
The Queen Mary was built by John Brown & Company at a shipyard in Clydebank, Scotland, originally designated as “Hull No. 534.” Construction began in the early 1930s but stalled during the Great Depression when the Cunard Line ran out of money. The British Parliament agreed to subsidize completion on the condition that Cunard merge with its rival, the White Star Line. The resulting company, Cunard-White Star, launched the ship on its maiden voyage in 1936.13Atlantic Liners. RMS Queen Mary Home
After decades of transatlantic service and a wartime stint as a troop transport, the rise of commercial jet travel in the late 1950s and 1960s made ocean liners increasingly unprofitable.14Wikipedia. RMS Queen Mary Rather than send the vessel to the scrapyard, Cunard put it up for sale, and Long Beach city leaders bought it as a centerpiece for waterfront tourism. By several accounts they didn’t fully appreciate how much it would cost to maintain a steel-hulled ship built in the 1930s.1LAist. The Queen Mary Turns A Profit After Years of Debt And Disrepair The purchase closed in 1967, and the Queen Mary has been a Long Beach asset ever since.