Downtown landlord seeks $300K from Tiburon for late-night ferry

The downtown commercial landlord and developer that owns prominent buildings housing restaurants like Caffe Acri and the coming Bungalow Kitchen, Petite Left Bank and Malibu Farm is planning to ask Tiburon for a $300,000 subsidy to fund late-night ferry runs to San Francisco.

The council is slated to consider the request from A&C Ventures, which operates locally as ACV Argo Tiburon LP, at its meeting tonight, Oct. 20. The figure to be requested of Tiburon represents 80 percent of the expected shortfall for the service over its first two years. The remaining 20 percent, or about $75,000, would come from 13 downtown restaurants benefiting from the ferry, according to the proposal from A&C, which also owns the Tiburon Ferry Landing just steps from its high-profile downtown restaurants.

The proposal also provides the first look at the plan for Tiburon-based small-scale ferry and water-taxi service Tideline Marine Group to start the new late-night service. Tideline tentatively would provide runs roughly hourly between 7 and 11:15 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, with the first departure, from San Francisco’s Pier 1½, to arrive in Tiburon at 7:30 p.m.; returns to San Francisco would be at 7:35, 8:45 and 10:45 p.m. Tickets would cost $20 each way, according to the proposal. The largest boat in Tideline’s fleet carries 149 passengers, with three more carrying 44-50.

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