A four-story casino riverboat arrived in Memphis this month from Davenport, Iowa for its next reinvention. Over the next two months Memphis Riverboats, Inc. plans to renovate the boat into a space for hosting large-scale events.
Third-generation owner and operator Captain William Lozier is carrying on the legacy of his grandfather, Tom Meanley, who originally designed and built most of the company’s fleet after buying the company in 1960. In 2005, Lozier bought out the family business and began to update and refurbish the fleet.
The company’s new riverboat, christened the “Treble Clef", operated as the Rhythm City Casino in Davenport until early May. That’s when Lozier bought the boat, which had all of its casino equipment removed before it made its way down the Mississippi River to Memphis. A new name for the boat will be chosen soon.
“It’s a massive boat with high ceilings,” said Lozier, who estimates its value at $3 million. “We were really fortunate to pick it up. It was probably one of the biggest gaming boats out there.”
Renovations over the next two months will include fresh paint inside and out, and rehabbing the thirty-foot bars on each floor.
“For the most part, the boat is nearly ready to go,” said Lozier. “We’re using it for our infrastructure of our dock also. We really bought it to use as a dock-side facility.”
The boat, which will hold up to 1,900 people, will remain docked for charity events, dances, weddings, dinners and other special events while the company’s other boats will continue to do river tours.
“It will take us two months to get it integrated in with the dock. We’re getting rid of all of the dock’s other floating equipment,” said Lozier. “The new boat is actually taking the place of the whole dock.”
Lozier hopes to open the doors for business by February, and he expects to hire a crew of about 30 people to run events for their season which runs from March through October.
The Memphis Riverboats, which formed as Memphis Queen Line in 1950, currently has four vessels stationed in Memphis: The Memphis Queen III, the Memphis Queen II, the Memphis Showboat and the Island Queen. The Memphis Showboat will be heading down to New Orleans next year for a complete renovation.
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Michael Waddell is a native Memphian who returned to Memphis several years ago after working for nearly a decade in San Diego and St. Petersburg, Fla., as a writer, editor and graphic designer. His work over the past few years has been featured in
The Memphis Daily News,
Memphis Bioworks Magazine,
Memphis Crossroads, the
New York Daily News and the
New York Post.
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