Port Canaveral has six active cruise terminals generating record revenue but plans to build out a seventh mean a tight timeline to find a new home for a popular marina after officials finally identified a target replacement home.

What officials are referring to as the future Cruise Terminal 4 would be built on the south side of the port where Bluepoints Marina currently resides, an 11-acre space that would allow for 1,400 feet of waterfront that could accommodate large cruise ships and parking.

“This is a significant project at that end of the port so there’s a lot of work to do, and we’ve been doing it behind the scenes,” said Port Canaveral CEO Capt. John Murray at the at the port authority commission meeting Wednesday.

Murray said it wants to shift Bluepoints customers to the 15-acre Cape Marina property also on the port’s south side but farther west.

“That’s where you see all the boats that are up on blocks with the blue tarps under them,” Murray said. “We’ve advised them that we’re not going to renew their lease.”

Murray said that lease expires in February 2026.

“It’s very underutilized today and it’s of sufficient size that it could accommodate the Bluepoints boaters in that facility,” he said.

At issue is that the port would like to have a new home for the Bluepoints customers by the end of 2026, which is when the port will take ownership of that marina, and could potentially begin work on Cruise Terminal 4.

“That’s the drop dead point. At that point, (Bluepoints) are out and we have the facility, so we’d like to advance everything as much as we can so that there’s plenty of time to build another facility and accommodate the folks … at Bluepoints today,” Murray said.

The port’s goal is not to reduce the access or number of customers it can support as it ventures into the disruptive major construction the future cruise terminal would require.

“We’re not taking anything away. Our goal is to improve the efficiency of the existing acreage and uplands at that end of the port,” Murray said. “We are also supporting our commercial fishing trade. A lot of the folks that bring product in for seafood Atlantic have their boats in this area. So we are working to make sure that that is accommodated and we want to redevelop that district.”

The port intends to ask for bids in redeveloping the Cape Marina property once the lease has ended, and Cape Marina is welcome to participate in the bid process, Murray said.

“During this process, we’re doing everything we can to mitigate impacts to users — improve the waterway access, etc.” Murray said, noting that the first step is to take over the Cape Marina property, “and then ultimately bring in the Bluepoints footprint over to that side and develop for multiple years.”

Cruise terminal construction could take place in tandem. The port’s last new cruise terminal, Cruise Terminal 3, home to Carnival’s Mardi Gras, took about 16 months to turn around from when the port broke ground in March 2019.

Commissioner Wayne Justice reiterated his support of moving the small-boat business in favor of supporting the cruise industry.

“This is a strategic direction that we started a couple of years ago, and that is to optimize the use of our deep-water bulkheads,” he said. “That’s our most valuable asset in this port … and deep-water bulkheads are for ships.”

With cruise numbers from the first four months of the fiscal year, from October-January, Canaveral has already had 307 cruise ship calls with 2.5 million passengers. The port’s budget projects operating revenue of nearly $190 million through the end of the fiscal year in September.

“It’s living up to budget and very, very strong passenger counts,” Murray said.

That financial reality is what’s pushing the port to expand, but the uncertainty in timetables is something the port needs to address, said port commission chairman Micah Loyd.

“There’s a lot of rumors floating around out there … it would probably be good to see a timeline at some point to say, ‘This is when the new Bluepoints is going to come online;’ ‘This is when the new terminal will be done,’” Loyd said. “There’s a lot of balls in the air, so I don’t think we actually know those things. Right now, we’re at a starting point. So at some point, it would be good to kind of release that to the public just so everybody’s aware of what’s going on.”