As published in The San Diego Daily Transcript, February 21, 2007

A Coldwell Banker Commercial team has been exclusively engaged to arrange the sale of the master lease for the Queen's Seaport Development area in Long Beach. They bayfront property includes the 72-year old Queen Mary ocean liner, which contains a 365-room hotel and drawing 1.2 million visitors annually.

Tom Olson and Alan Scott of Coldwell Banker Commercial Almar Real Estate Group, John McKeown of Coldwell Banker Commercial R.E.A.G. and Dan Richards of Coldwell Banker Commercial Inland Empire, announced the leasehold is available for sale to bids more than $40 million. The winning bidder will receive the 54-year lease and rights to develop 75.69 acres of land and water rights near the ship, currently occupied by parking lots, containers, oil pumpers, a cruise terminal and a geodesic dome that once housed Howard Hughes' Spruce Goose airplane.

The property, appraised in July 2006 at more than $48 million, is expected to attract bidding exceeding the $40 million minimum. Acquisition of the leasehold will afford the buyer with an opportunity to develop a visitor-oriented, mixed use waterfront development anticipated to include hospitality, retail, restaurant, marine, office and entertainment components.

Although the property is currently the subject of a bankruptcy proceeding, a major hurdle was cleared this past November, when the bankruptcy trustee facilitated a settlement of the rent dispute between the current leaseholder and the city of Long Beach. This rent dispute originally had led to the filing of the bankruptcy proceeding.

The Queensway Bay Planned Development Plan provides a potential framework to guide and control development of a pedestrian, recreational and commercial destination in the Queensway Bay area of the Long Beach Harbor Department, in conformance with the Queensway Bay Waterfront Development. Currently, the area is slated to include an integrated waterfront development; improved shoreline access; entertainment, hotel, display, commercial and recreational facilities; maritime businesses; and an enhancement of the Queen Mary facilities.