Hutson Companies, Major Housing Developer, Bids $3.5 Million for Bankrupt Marineland Dolphin Adventure

The Hutson Companies, a St. Augustine developer of single-family homes and apartment complexes, has placed a $3.5 million bid for the bankrupt 5.1-acre Marineland Dolphin Adventure property in Marineland, suggesting that if the sale closes later this month, the famed attraction’s 87-year history may be coming to an end.  

An open auction is scheduled for Oct. 27 in Delaware. Most of the property is in Flagler County. A sliver is in St. Johns County. 

The Hutson Companies is owned by the family of Travis Hutson, the former Florida House and Senate member whose district included Flagler County. Hutson said today he had not been associated with the company or its doings since taking a job with the St. Johns County Clerk of Court last March. 

A person answering the phone at the Hutson Companies would not even take a message for Cody Hutson, the company president, when told of the reason for the call. “We don’t have a comment on that,” she said, referring to “strict instructions.” 

Leisure Investment Holdings, parent company of Marineland Dolphin Adventure and 14 other companies, filed for bankruptcy on March 31 in Delaware Bankruptcy Court. Marineland has continued to operate, albeit on a limited schedule. 

“Personally, I’d rather see the dolphins stay right where they are,” Marineland Mayor Joseph “Buddy” Pinder said,  “see somebody that wants to run the attraction. The dolphins have been there a long time. Nelly was something like 60 years old when she passed away.” Nellie had been the world’s oldest-living dolphin in captivity when she turned 61 in 2014, and Marienaldn’s most famous citizen. She died nine weeks later. She was born in Marineland in 1953. 

“It doesn’t really directly affect us as far as commission business, but obviously it’s going to have an impact on what happens with the town going forward,” Dennis Bayer, Marineland’s town attorney, said at its last town commission meeting, when the bankruptcy court had laid out a schedule but not yet recorded the Hutson bid. Bayer, who was in the Keys today, could not be reached.

On July 2, Leisure Investments motioned toward bidding out the properties, which the court granted later that month.  On Monday, the company entered into a so-called “stalking horse” purchasing agreement with Hutson. (See the agreement here.)

A stalking-horse bid, or agreement, is an opening bid that allows the company in bankruptcy to set a floor for potential future bids. It does not necessarily mean that Hutson–the stalking horse–will be the buyer. But other interested buyers must bid higher to be considered. 

“It’s a mechanism in bankruptcy which is intended to flesh out buyers by establishing a baseline of what may be acceptable to the court and to the creditors for the purchase of assets,” Flagler Beach bankruptcy attorney Scott Spradley said. The stalking horse has certain benefits, but doesn’t have guarantees. To be outbid, “there must be a greater and better bid, which usually means financial terms.” 

If Hutson isn’t the winning bid, it is entitled to $70,000 (or 2 percent of the sale price) from the eventual sale proceeds. 

Meanwhile, Hutson has deposited $350,000, or 10 percent of the purchase price, in an escrow account. 

There are potential complications. Tradewinds is a company that helped Leisure Investments’ parent company find lenders to secure a $115 million loan several years ago, in exchange for a fee. The parent company breached that agreement. Tradewinds sued and won a $3.7 million judgment in 2017, plus interest. Marineland Dolphin was among the companies whose stock certificates were used to secure the loan. Tradewinds is now asserting a lien on the Marineland property and other Florida properties in the same company portfolio. 

That aside, if the court approves the sale, the closing would take place within 30 days of that approval. The sale would have to be free of all encumbrance, such as “mortgages, liens, encumbrances, judgments, complaints, claims, easements, covenants, restrictions, and other title matters of any kind and nature whatsoever.” As of today, Marineland is $91,000 in arrears on its Flagler County property taxes, having paid only the first of four installments for its 2024 taxes. 

According to its Sept. 23 monthly operating report, Marineland was operating on monthly revenue for August of $271,000, with a monthly profit of $18,600, but a net cash flow of negative $27,000 and a cumulative loss of $192,000 since the bankruptcy filing. It had 36 full-time employees and 17 dolphins. 

According to its “About” page, the Hutson Companies “owns and is developing projects in Clay, Duval and St. Johns Counties, with total development rights to over 17,000 single and multi-family homes, as well as over 7 million square feet of commercial, office and industrial space.” Its most recent development is the 6,400-acre OakLeaf Plantation in southwest Jacksonville. The company does not have experience with dolphins.

Other companies have shown interest in the property, including, very briefly, a company in the movie business, but the interest hasn’t gone beyond feelers and chatter.

At two previous Marineland Town Commission meetings, Hugh Darley, representing Providence Island Ventures, appeared before the commission to say his company would be filing a bid both for the Marineland Dolphin Adventure attraction and to buy acreage owned by Jim Jacoby, who owns almost all the privately-held land in town. Ft. Lauderdale-based Providence Island Venture is a two-year-old company with a limited profile, other than Darley’s own couple of web-page appearances.

“We currently are in the bid process for Marienaldn,” he said. “We apparently have been asked to be the stalking horse bidder, which typically means we’re the lead bid. So we’re anticipating possibly being awarded the marine land property. So we’re very interested in this meeting and the things that are going on, because we could very quickly, as early as November 5, be a landowner here.”

There is no document referring to Providence Island Ventures in the bankruptcy court record. Nevertheless Darley went on, describing designs on buying more than Marineland’s dolphin attraction and “look at developing a destination master plan for what will be about 500 acres total.” There are not 500 acres to buy in Marineland. (“I was very shocked when I heard that,” Pinder said. “I was shaking my head, where’s he talking about 500 acres?”)

A sale hearing is scheduled before federal Bankruptcy Judge Laurie Selber Silverstein in Wilmington, Delaware, at 2 p.m. on Oct. 27.