Toronto waterfront landmark Captain John’s Restaurant may be destined for the scrap heap.

At least two “breakers” — companies that tow away and recycle old ships into reusable metal — are expected to seek court approval Thursday to rid Toronto of the aging eyesore.

The winner’s biggest advantage may simply be timing: Which company can make the towering ship disappear from the foot of Yonge St. by the Aug. 22 deadline favoured by the Toronto Port Authority.

By Wednesday night, a group of U.S. investors was reconsidering its planned bid for the now-defunct floating restaurant, which has been docked at the foot of Yonge St. since the 1970s and mired in legal and financial problems for more than a decade.

“Buying it is no problem,” says Boston-area businessman John Scales, who was in Toronto this week on behalf of three U.S. investors looking to buy the ship and turn it into an entertainment venue.

“The problem is, what do you do with it when you get it? It’s going to take at least $3 million to restore it and you have to have a place to dock it to do business.”





That was proving to be the biggest challenge, says Scales, whose group presented a letter of intent to the port authority this week, seeking assistance to get a spot at Ontario Place, Sugar Beach or the former Rochester Ferry Terminal just to the east.

Ultimately, what happens to the waterfront landmark will be up to a Federal Court judge who has set a 9 a.m. Thursday deadline for offers and will open the sealed bids at 2 p.m.

Scales says he’s been told of two breakers preparing bids — “the marine community is quite small” — but he’s not certain of their names.

“We have had interest from a number of potential buyers and we have facilitated a number of tours of the ship,” says port authority spokesperson Erin Mikaluk.

Who snags the ship will depend on a number of court-set conditions, including one saying that a buyer meet the undisclosed, appraised value of the largely gutted, mouldy 300-foot Jadran.

The ship has been sitting in limbo since the City of Toronto shut off the water more than two years ago.

Owner “Captain” John Letnik, 75, owes more than $1 million in realty taxes, and berthing and other fees and has more than $650,000 worth of mortgages outstanding on the now defunct restaurant.

The ship may be worth, at best, $500,000 or so as scrap metal, the price of which has fallen by half in the last few years as the Chinese economy has slowed.

But marine experts have estimated in the past that it could cost $250,000 to remove bits of hazardous asbestos and lead paint on the old ship, tow and tear it apart.

Scales figures that, at best, the sale — the court effort is being lead by the port authority on behalf of itself, Waterfront Toronto and the City of Toronto — may generate $100,000 to help pay off Letnik’s outstanding debt.

But he acknowledges that scrapping the ship gets rid of the problem quickly.

His group’s business plan for the ship, which includes towing it to dry dock, spending millions on renovations and securing at least a five-year lease, in advance, on a predetermined waterfront site easily accessible to tourists and locals, could have taken years.

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The potential of seeing the giant landmark scrapped breaks the heart of visionaries such as branding and design guru Michel Viau, founder and president of Toronto-based Ove Brand Design, who has seen the Jadran each summer day for years while commuting from his sailboat on the Toronto Islands to his downtown office.

“I love that boat. If you take away the dirt and what’s wrong … you see the picture of what it could look like in five years. It could be turned into a beautiful yacht with beautiful awnings and traditional deck chairs and lighting.”

In the race to build condos and revamp the waterfront, “we’re lacking that kind of heritage experience,” says Viau, who thinks civic officials should launch a design competition to give the ship new life.

“New design is great, but there is a romance in stepping onto an old ship. It’s one of the few remnants left of Toronto’s working harbour.”

Viau points to the Port of Montreal for inspiration. There, the fantastic floating spa and restaurant attraction Bota Bota evolved from a former ferry boat turned Richelieu River show boat.

The boat was purchased by a Montreal-area family in 2008, turned over to an architect and opened in Old Montreal in late 2010.

Waterfront officials here have made it clear that the Jadran is not part of its 30-year plan for revitalizing Toronto’s waterfront: Luxury condos in the Residences of Pier 27 complex adjacent to the ship are slated to start occupying soon and Waterfront Toronto has plans for a public park and promenade where the gangplank to the ship rests.

The port authority has said is has no waterfront land with the parking, water and sewage capacity to handle crowds.

Letnik filed a $1.2 million lawsuit last December against the port authority, saying that very refusal to provide a long-term lease has crippled his ability to sell the ship and pay off his debts.

For now, Letnik sits in dry dock — a basement unit in a three-storey apartment building he owns in Scarborough, where he’s now transported an anchor, brass lanterns and other ship artifacts, most of them from his other waterfront venture, the Normac, which sank in 1981.

They all decorate the front lawn of the well-kept building which has been Letnik’s only port in a storm since he was effectively ousted from the captain’s quarters of the ship when the water was shut off in June 2012.

“There’s no value in these things, but they are part of me — part of my history,” says Letnik as he awaits the Thursday auction.

“I have a feeling nothing will happen. That there will be no bids,” he says wistfully.

“And if there are,” he says, a sudden gleam in his eye, “I still have the keys to the ship.”