The HarborView Marina off Key Highway in South Baltimore abruptly announced it’s closing, effective March 31, citing “safety concerns.”

The closure was announced in an email to members sent Thursday night that has been reviewed by The Banner.

A staff member at the marina said that only the owner is authorized speak to the news media and that the owner was not immediately available.

The email says an engineer advised the ownership of “safety concerns about the current condition of the fixed pier.” The message acknowledges the short notice, but says all boats must be removed no later than the end of the month.

Patrick Campbell, a marina member for more than 10 years, said he had never seen a sudden closure of a marina like this before.

“It’s totally gobsmacking, it really is,” he said.

Campbell said he has never worried about the pier’s safety and said it’s always felt “as solid as anything could be.”

The marina was purchased by Baltimore Harborview Marine Center in 2010, and incorporation documents listed Selvin Passen, a doctor with real estate holdings along the Canton waterfront, as the manager. Documents filed just months later transferred the manager to “Harborview Manager LLC,” an entity which has attorneys associated with Passen listed as its resident agents.

In December, a trust in Passen’s name, plus two others associated with HarborView Marina, Dan Naor and Dr. Steve Berlin, filed for a confessed judgment against the marina, saying they had lent hundreds of thousands of dollars to the marina’s LLC that were never paid back.

The marina company, which didn’t file any responses in court, owed Passen’s trust $383,700, Berlin $219,500, and Naor $218,688, according to the court filings. A judge granted the judgment a month later.

An attorney listed for the men did not immediately return a call seeking comment Friday afternoon.

HarborView Marina was once home to the the Tiki Barge, which closed in 2019 and then floated, empty, until late 2023. The community is also home to a DiPasquale’s Marketplace location.

Slip holders, including Campbell, are now working to move their boats to other nearby marinas. HarborView Marina has 278 slips, according to its website.

HarborView was one of the few remaining marinas in Baltimore that welcomed “liveaboards” or the people who live on their boats. In recent years, many of the city’s independent marinas have been sold to corporations that don’t allow liveaboards. HarborView’s closure leaves one less place for liveaboards to go.

“People think that boating is a rich person’s thing, but there are others who have sold their homes and taken all their money and put it into their boat, because they want to live on it and that’s their dream,” said Capt. Bobby LaPin, of Boat Baltimore, a sailboat charter in South Baltimore. “The idea that you have to move your home in less than 30 days is devastating.”

In Fells Point, the 256-slip marina Henderson’s Wharf allows liveaboards, and their phone has been ringing all day from boaters forced to leave HarborView.

The email from HarborView management said it will provide refunds for any slip holders who have already paid for time beyond March 31.

“It’s my favorite place. It’s like a little sanctuary when you go there,” Campbell said.

Reporters Justin Fenton and Tim Prudente contributed to this story.