PORT CANAVERAL, Fla. – Two years since Port Canaveral put its tallest building up for lease, the Exploration Tower still doesn’t have a tenant.
The seven-story tower catches a lot of eyeballs as drivers head toward the port, but it never actually made a profit.
Hours were reduced during the COVID-19 shutdown in 2020, and then the tower closed for maintenance in 2022 and hasn’t reopened since.
The tower opened in 2013 with a museum and exhibits, event space, and a seventh-floor observation deck.
In late 2024, the Space Force’s Historical Foundation looked like it could be the new tenant and would keep a lot of those features.
However, more than a year after those plans, nothing’s changed.
Your Cape Canaveral Community Correspondent James Sparvero wondered how locals feel about the port’s tallest building still being empty.
Some of the only people you find around the tower these days are bike riders like Walter Shuman.
“Seems kind of, maybe, a waste of money,” he said. “The locals seem like, ‘What’s the point of it?’”
Schuman and another resident, Terry Zittle, still think the tower’s got potential.
“Seems to me like businesses would do alright, restaurants, maybe,” Zittle said.
He told Sparvero he agreed that a rooftop bar could be another idea.“Most of my neighbors say it looks like a finger, or it looks kinda stupid, but I wish it could be better,” Shuman said. “It’s pretty at night. The lights are great.”
“I gotta believe that they’re doing a lot of research and trying to figure it out,” Zittle added.
Sparvero asked the port and the space foundation for an update to the tower’s future.
After its maintenance, the port said it’s now in good shape, and it remains available for lease.
Stick with News 6 and ClickOrlando.com for updates whenever we hear if someone might finally move in.