Jaguars owner Shad Khan, who hosts “Kismet” every year in the downtown area earns $212 a day as it accuses him of tying up a large yacht on the Northbank Riverwalk.
The dock near the Hyatt Regency Jacksonville Riverfront hotel and the Main Street bridge is a destination for larger cruise ships when they dock in downtown Jacksonville.
The city charges Khan a standard rate in its payment system based on the length of the boat. That cost is 50 cents per lute per day. Kismet is about 400 meters tall.
It is the largest yacht to dock at that location. All the competition in that category are old yachts owned by Khan. But Jacksonville is no stranger to seeing large ships in that area of St. Johns River.
When Jacksonville hosted the Super Bowl in 2005 and used cruise ships as “floating hotels” for tourists, the 565-foot-long Seven Seas Navigator cruise ship docked along the riverwalk. Jacksonville has brought in fleets to beat the number of hotel rooms required by the NFL for a Super Bowl host city.
Carnival Cruise Lines uses the JaxPort port west of the Dames Point bridge for its larger cruise ships so they don’t have to go upriver like downtown. But the area near the Hyatt Regency hotel is now used by small 220-foot cruise ships operated by American Cruise Lines when they dock in Jacksonville.
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The 453-foot USS Stephen W. Groves docks at St. Johns River in front of the Hyatt Regency hotel in downtown Jacksonville on October 12, 2008. 233rd anniversary and open to the public.
Jacksonville also received naval vessels at that location.
The 453-foot USS Stephen W. Groves was open to the public when it docked at the site in October 2008 to celebrate the 233rd anniversary of the U.S. Navy and 20 years of the Jacksonville Navy Memorial.
This article originally appeared on the Florida Times-Union: Shad Khan paying the usual town fee for the Kismet yacht.