This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, March 3, 2011 - The quiet demolition this month of the former S.S. Admiral -- once hailed as a signature landmark on St. Louis' riverfront -- belies the vessel's last 27 years, most of it in the spotlight and much of it filled with soap-opera style mishaps and costly resurrections.
Some of that spending involved taxpayers' dollars, money that will never be recovered from sales of scrap metal.
Now merely a failed gambling casino cut up for scrap, the Admiral was hailed 24 years ago -- on March 11, 1987 -- as a reborn entertainment mecca just blocks away from another hot-at-the-time downtown property, St. Louis Centre. Although without engines, the "new" Admiral featured bars, restaurants, a $2 million kitchen and a ballroom. Six Flags was to run it, amid predictions that 900,000 people a year would come aboard.
The 1987 version of the Admiral had been the beneficiary of a $36.9 million overhaul that included $7.6 million in taxpayer money, courtesy of the federal government and City Hall. Just under $22 million was actually spent to rebuild and refurbish the vessel. The remaining $15 million went largely for consultants ($6.5 million), unexplained "interim costs" ($3.1 million) and "pre-opening fees"' ($2.7 million).
All that spending came about because many prominent St. Louisans at the time fondly remembered the S.S. Admiral's decades as a sightseeing boat cruising the Mississippi River while offering food, drink and dance to the travelers.
In 1979, the Coast Guard had declared the vessel unseaworthy. Pittsburgh millionaire John Connelly, who had a business history with riverboats, bought the Admiral in 1981 for $600,000 from the Streckfuss family, which had owned and operated it for decades. His plan called for using the Admiral as a docking barge.
Amid outrage from St. Louisans, city officials and civic leaders organized a consortium to buy the boat back for $1.6 million. Connelly got to keep the engines.
Initial estimates called for the Admiral to be revamped at a cost of $5 million to $6 million. Construction disputes, legal fights, a crowd of consultants and lawyers helped shoot up the pricetag. A group of 53 limited partners each paid $100,000 for a share of what had been expected to be a booming venture.
By November 1987, just six months after that gala opening, the Admiral's business went bust. Blame was levied on many fronts, including a $4.50 entry fee and two giant pink fire towers -- for public safety -- that obscured the view of the boat.
Connelly re-entered the picture, took over as operator and reopened the Admiral for another year. It closed for good as an entertainment center in November 1988.
By 1990, he'd bought it back -- paying no more than $10 million -- and soon moved to transform the Admiral into the President Casino on the Admiral. Another $36 million-plus was spent.
It took a statewide vote in November 1992 to allow riverboat gambling in Missouri, before the Admiral could be resurrected once more.
The boat was abuzz with business again -- until a state Supreme Court ruling in January 1994 effectlively tossed out that 1992 vote. A smaller, more conservative bloc of statewide voters in April 1994 rejected riverboat gaming, in effect shutting the Admiral down again. In November 1994, a third statewide vote was finally the charm. Gambling was legal again.
The Admiral's boom didn't last long. Within a few years, more riverboat casinos were in operation elsewhere -- and there was a move to get at least one more downtown.
In April 1998, the vessel was back in the headlines, for the wrong reason. The President Casino on the Admiral was packed with 2,300 casino visitors when a runaway barge hit the complex, knocking the Admiral from its mooring and sending it partially adrift. A cable and an anchor kept the vessel somewhat connected to shore.
After surviving that episode, the permanently moored vessel remained in operation, amid financial troubles and bankruptcies. Owners changed. Revenue declined.
Pinnacle Entertainment closed the Admiral last June, and sold it to St. Louis Marine, the firm now overseeing its demise. Tragedy hit the vessel once again in January, in the form of a two-alarm fire.
Not all of the Admiral is going for scrap. One remnant of its first 1980s rebuild -- the theater barge -- has been sold to the Ohio River town of Jeffersonville, Ind., which hopes to transform it into an outdoor entertainment venue.
After more than $75 million in documented public/private spending, and likely more private costs never made public, the Admiral is no more.
But many of the players and investors tied to it over the last two-plus decades will no doubt concur that the vessel has lived up to its original moniker back in the early days. That's when the boat was a barge named, what else? The Albatross.
