Want to own Tampa’s Beer Can Island? Here’s what it’s like.

TAMPA — One benefit of owning an island is setting the dress code.

During his six years as one of four partners who own Pine Key — better known by locals as Beer Can Island — Cole Weaver’s been casually naked there quite a few times.

“That’s one of the things I am going to miss the most,” he said.

The 9-acre apostrophe-shaped island, with another 60 acres of surrounding submerged land, is for sale. Located between Apollo Beach and MacDill Air Force Base, it went on the market Feb. 15 and interested buyers can visit beercanisland.com.

What’s it like to own the island? Just ask the current owners, who seemed to be the first to try to make something of Pine Key since it was created by a dredging project in the 1940s.

How it started

Russell Loomis spent 2008 through 2015 in Iquitos, Peru, on the Amazon River.

“You see a lot of floating restaurants and floating bars and hotels and that kind of thing there,” said Loomis, 46. “So, when I got back here, I thought that was a great idea.”

Loomis initially wanted to build a floating Airbnb. For partners, he brought on friends Weaver, a Denver real estate agent with a degree in architectural engineering, and James Wester, a club promoter and subcontractor.

Then they learned of Destin’s Waterworld, a now-defunct floating restaurant from which the owner rented personal watercraft and sold alcohol.

“We ended up doing a road trip,” Weaver, 43, said. “The owner said … a bar is the real moneymaker. He really pivoted us.”

They built a motorized tiki bar platform the size of a tennis court atop 258 55-gallon plastic drums — inspired by Richart Sowa, known for turning 150,000 plastic bottles into a floating island off the coast of Cancun.

The floating bar became a party venue for rent. But wherever they docked, neighbors complained. So they reached out to Imperial Island, the company that owned Pine Key, about renting a piece of the island used for dropping sand from a dredging operation. For liability reasons, Imperial Island couldn’t rent but was willing to sell.

At the time, the Hillsborough Property Appraiser’s website said the island was worth $63,650, less than half what it cost to build the floating bar.

Imperial Island said yes to that price and the three friends brought on club promoter John Gadd as a fourth financial partner. The sale was finalized on Dec. 22, 2017, and they began planning how to expand their business from a party boat to a party island.

“My vision was no different than a state park with adult amenities,” Loomis said.

Public reaction

For decades prior to the sale, the public enjoyed unfettered access to the island. Former owners had taken a hands-off approach. It had no roads, paths, running water or electricity. And there was no one around to enforce any rules.

Many were angry when the foursome announced that they’d bought Pine Key and planned to civilize it with toilets, alcohol sales, food service, security, recreational activities, camping grounds and VIP areas that required paid memberships during parties.

“I think people thought it was their island and we just bought their island,” Weaver said.

“One guy in particular was harassing us through the internet,” said Gadd, 46. “He actually defecated on the island and then sent us a picture of it to let us know that that’s how he feels about us.”

Weaver moved into a tent on the island for 100 days and nights. During that time, he welcomed visitors and calmed fears that they would lose access to the island. Instead, he’d say, it was being improved for them.

“James would pretty much bring me food every week and I put it in a cooler, and I would just live there,” Weaver said. “I’m literally sitting on an island partying with beautiful people and having the time of my life. And then it’s weird, at sunset, everybody leaves me and I’m just alone walking around this island.”

Usually naked, he said.

Toward the tail end of his 100 days, all four owners spent a week camping there.

“We hung out, just grilling,” Loomis said, “and saying, ‘We bought an island. What now?’”

Stocking the island

Nearly everything added to the island — concert stages, bars, picnic tables — was constructed by the owners and then moved there on a barge that cost around $4,000 a day to rent.

“Everything is more expensive to do because you’re offshore,” Loomis said. “Out on the island, we had to figure out the logistics how to get stuff out there.”

Initially, Gadd moved into a rental home along the Apollo Beach canal, a short boat trip to the island, and used it for supply storage. The living room was a “miniature liquor store,” he said, and they kept up to 1,000 pounds of ice in a chest in the garage.

Neighbors “were kind of OK with it at first,” Gadd said. “But, as we got more comfortable, I think they started to become less comfortable with it.”

Supplies were then taken from the house to the island on a boat they owned.

They eventually moved supplies from his house to storage space at a nearby marina and added storage infrastructure to the island. They brought over a food truck, bought a tractor to disperse supplies throughout Pine Key and added 10 portable bathrooms that needed to be emptied twice a week.

“We Shop-Vac’d the toilets out into a 55-gallon drum and then seal the drum up and transport that over to the marina, and then the marina would pump out the drums for us,” Loomis said. “It’s a ridiculous amount of work.”

Hosting festivals

Owning an island was also a lot of fun.

They held weekendlong festivals a few times a year and had music on most weekend nights during warm months.

“We’d bring in DJs from around the world … platinum-record artists and all kinds of people,” Gadd said.

Their largest festival sold 3,000 tickets. Most festivals drew at least 1,000.

“We thought it would take a lot of security people patrolling the beach,” Gadd said. “But what worked really well was that we would close a portion of the island and have it kind of roped off with a small security force.”

Anyone could listen to the music from outside that area but had to pay if they wanted to join the party, get close to the DJ and purchase alcohol.

Weaver’s favorite party addition was the giant inflatable slide on the beach.

“I remember a girl walking along the beach came up to me and said, ‘Hey, it’s my birthday. Can I go down the water slide?’ I said, ‘Only in your birthday suit,’ and she just strips down butt naked and runs over there to the water slide.”

Loomis said that last year they made around $750,000 gross, mostly from food and beverage sales, and around $550,000 the year before.

Their property taxes for 2023 were $1,806.21, according to the Hillsborough County Tax Collector’s website.

Property and other types of insurance? “Not cheap,” Weaver said.

And, since purchasing the island, they have also spent over $1 million on attorneys fees for a zoning issue.

“I have not taken a paycheck in six years,” Loomis said.

The zoning problem

Previous owners never bothered to have the island zoned for any use.

The county wrote an ordinance in 1977 giving it jurisdiction over unzoned properties, but the ordinance was repealed in 2012 with plans to add language in the county’s underlying land development code. That never happened, which allowed Pine Key’s owners to forgo the county permitting process for construction and activities.

But since purchasing the island, Hillsborough County and the owners have been engaged in ongoing discussion over how it should be zoned. The county wants the island to become a private nature preserve, which the owners say is laughable.

Other than seagulls, Weaver said he’s only seen one animal on the island ever — a rat that tried to nest in his beard while camping.

Loomis said not much grows there naturally other than the pine trees that give the island its name. He planted hundreds of fruit trees — banana, papaya, pineapple, jack fruit and citrus — but most were destroyed when Hurricane Idalia washed water over the island.

“Saltwater kills,” Loomis said.

On Jan. 26, the owners agreed to shut down all activities until the zoning situation is settled. Less than three weeks later, the island was on the market.

What’s next?

Gadd is now focused entirely on his Spin City Disks business, which has sold disc golf equipment and apparel in Seffner since 2021.

Wester, 46, could not be reached by the Times. The other owners say he’s been traveling the world and looking to move to Europe.

Loomis wants to expand upon his vision for Pine Key, but elsewhere.

“Something that I’ve wanted to do for, let’s say, the better part of 15 to 20 years, is to purchase a piece of property where I can build a self-sustainable eco village,” he said, where “everything’s running on solar, and we have a huge farm/garden as a community effort.”

Weaver is back in Denver as a real estate agent.

“It’s definitely going to be weird not owning an island,” Weaver said. “It’s been something I’ve done 24/7 since we bought it. … But it was just time to move on. We’ve all changed and wanted to do other things.”