Biloxi Yacht Club building sold to same company that bought Margaritaville Casino

He bought the former Margaritaville Casino on the Back Bay in Biloxi last year, and before year’s end Harry Mohney also became the owner of the Biloxi Yacht Club’s building on the beach.

Work is just starting to transform the empty casino into a multi-venue attraction with dinning and an events center, said Britt Singletary, Mohney’s attorney for both transactions.

The Yacht Club building was to become a Dick’s Last Resort restaurant — known for its rude waiters who get customers to laugh at themselves. Mohney recently sold his share of the national restaurant chain and now is looking for a new use for the sprawling blue and white building overlooking the beach, Singletary said.

Southeast Commercial Real Estate on the Mississippi Gulf Coast was the listing agent for the casino and yacht club properties.

After about three years on the market, the sale of the yacht club building and pier went through just before Thanksgiving, said Tim Manuel, the yacht club commodore for 2024.

While members of the yacht club were packing decades of trophies and memorabilia, with the intention of finding a new location somewhere in the same area of east Biloxi, Mohney’s company MIC offered the club a great deal.

“He turned it around and leased it back to them for $1 a month,” Singletary said, with the possibility of extending the lease past a year. The club continues to pay the insurance and upkeep on the building and the pier on the beach.

The change of watch ceremony at the yacht club will be held this weekend for the first time in a couple of years and Manuel said, “We actually invited him (Mahoney) to the ceremony on Sunday. Unfortunately, he’s out of the country, unable to attend but he was very appreciative and expressed his happiness we were in the building, taking care of the building.”

Works starts at former Margaritaville

“We need a year to be able to get the Margaritaville building done,” Singletary said. Leasing the yacht club building back to the yacht club gives them time to focus on the company’s new venture, he said.

Crews started by cleaning the grounds and blasting and powder coating the exterior staircases a bright red.

Mohney owns Cat’s Meow karaoke bars in New Orleans, The Wharf at Orange Beach, at Las Vegas, Nashville, the Smoky Mountains and many other top resort areas in the country — and soon one in Biloxi at this new venue.

It also will have an events center with a big bar and seating for 2,500 people, Singletary said, and will host fights and shows. A speakeasy bar also is in the plans that will be phased in.

Margaritaville Casino opened in May 2012 with a concert by Jimmy Buffett and closed two years later in September 2014., in part because of its location on Fifth Street, several blocks off the Biloxi beach.

New life for the yacht club

The sale of their beautiful building on the beach was bittersweet, Manuel said.

“Obviously it changed our financial picture completely,” he said. The multi-story building went up soon after Hurricane Katrina flattened the previous building next door and he said, “A lot of people were going to be sad to move out.”

Maintenance on a building on the front beach was expensive, he said, and hurricanes frequently damaged the pier.

“We have a search committee that’s been established,” he said, and looking at all proposals for a new location on the water but perhaps on the Back Bay, which he said would be more protected.

The club is one of the top five oldest in the country, sailing since 1849, and has about 150 members in different classes. Manuel sees staying in the building for a year and Sunday’s change of watch ceremony as a chance to re-establish the club that’s had to deal with hurricanes, an oil spill, national recession, Covid, the sale of the building and other challenges.

Flags will be raised at the ceremony, the gavel will be passed by former commodore Kay Beaquez and Manuel will speak on the history of the club and his vision for the next year.

Manuel praised Ernie LaRocca, general manager of the Bay-Waveland Yacht Club, who offered his services and experience on a temporary basis to get the Biloxi Yacht Club going in the right direction again. He helped hire a new general manager, who is expected to be introduced Sunday, and a new chef to cook for club and private functions.

Manuel said his goal is to return to the events the members expect, like Memorial Day at the newly restored swimming pool, Fourth of July with a front-row seat to the fireworks and the commodore’s ball.

Manuel also wants to reestablish sail camps in the summer for juniors and kids that haven’t been held for three of four years.

“That is, for me, just about number one on my priority list to have returned because that’s that’s where your future is going to come from,” he said.