As you know, the Conservancy entered into a preliminary agreement to advance the SS United States' redevelopment with an impressive team including some of the nation's most qualified, respected, and innovative developers and managers of commercial real estate. Our partners share our passion for America's Flagship and fully appreciate the ship's iconic status and the importance of preserving the vessel's historic integrity. In recent months, an intensive due diligence process has been underway, involving a large team of architects, engineers, and maritime experts.

Major progress has been achieved, but many hurdles remain.  The project is extraordinarily complex and it requires the design and construction of new pier infrastructure, a full exterior restoration, updating of internal systems, dry-docking, and internal redesign and restoration, all while retaining the vessel's iconic exterior and incorporating a world-class museum,  Non-disclosure agreements limit the amount of information we've been able to provide to our supporters.  However, we wanted to share the latest updates:

• Gibbs & Cox, the marine engineering and naval architectural firm that designed the SS United States, has been retained by our development partners to advance a process of due diligence and generate detailed vessel plans. Gibbs & Cox has also overseen outreach to shipyards, joiners, designers, and a range of specialists.

• A number of exciting and wide-ranging conceptual renderings have been developed for the ship by some of the nation's top architectural firms.  While they are still very preliminary, we look forward to sharing some of these initial concepts and receiving your input. 

• Meetings with major hotel brands have been held with very positive results, and an informal working relationship has been established between the developers and a major hotel chain interested in exploring their involvement in the ship's renaissance.

• Our development partners have invested more than $500,000 during this exploratory phase, and they are committing additional personnel and financial resources in the coming months as they work to resolve the project's remaining challenges.

While our partners will be looking to raise millions to finance the ship's development, the Conservancy must raise an additional $180,000 between now and August 15.

In the coming weeks we will share further details on our summer fundraising and outreach plans.  We are organizing a festive event in Philadelphia on July 30 - please mark your calendars!  

We will also be offering new branded merchandise and we will be mounting a major membership drive. 

Contributions of any size will be an enormous help as we enter this final phase. Donations can be made online at http://www.ssusc.org/give-and-join/donate/

Again, we can't thank you enough for your continued support, and please don't hesitate to contact us directly with any questions, suggestions, or advice.  We agree wholeheartedly with last weekend's Parade Magazine, which affirmed that the SS United States is a "national treasure of the highest order."