RIJEKA, Croatia — Once an industrial hub, the port city of Rijeka, on the edge of the Kvarner Bay, has grand ambitions to transform itself into a bustling art center as it embarks on the path to become a European “capital of culture.”

The aspirational title was bestowed by the European Union on Rijeka, Croatia’s third-largest city, as part of a campaign to celebrate the diversity of the bloc’s 28 members, and it has sent the city on the Adriatic Sea on a refurbishing spree.

Officials are sparing no expense, setting aside about 20 million euros to transform the city’s decaying infrastructure, and they are considering allocating €30 million to finance a yearlong cultural rejuvenation.

As a symbolic centerpiece of the makeover, they have plucked a maritime relic from Croatia’s past to restore and to showcase: a nearly 80-year-old ship named Galeb, or Seagull, that belonged to the Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito. Once a prized vessel of the Yugoslav Navy, which used it as a training boat, it has been rusting at the city’s port for years.