Daniel Bean remembers - vividly and fondly - the first time he stepped foot on the USS Charles F. Adams.

"It was a great learning experience that I wouldn't want to repeat," Bean said this week about his days as a midshipman on the Adams back in the 1980s, a tour spent mostly on general quarters in the waters around Cuba.

Bean went on to qualify as a surface warfare operator and then to law school, worked as a Navy lawyer and eventually joined the reserves and started practicing civilian law.

Now a partner in the Jacksonville office of the Holland & Knight law firm, Bean recently consulted on legislation that would take a big step toward having the Adams return to Jacksonville, this time as a floating museum.

"It's one more thing for people to do when they're downtown, another reason for tourists to visit downtown and create more activity there," Bean said.

A first step

That legislation was introduced to the City Council on Tuesday night, marking the first official move by the city in the years that the Jacksonville Historic Naval Ship Association has been working on the project.

"We've got some traction," said John O'Neil, executive director of the association, which along with the Adams Class Veterans Association has been fighting to get the 50-year-old vessel a new home.

The city ordinance would provide the city's formal support for bringing the decommissioned destroyer to Jacksonville, a requirement before the Navy would release the ship. It also binds the city to supporting museum organizers as they negotiate with the state over using the site east of the Acosta Bridge where the ship would float.

The city now has a pier there, which the museum association would replace once the ship arrives.

The bill doesn't ask the city for any money for the project, which organizers say will be totally donation-funded.

Mayport roots

A group of Navy veterans has been trying for years to save the destroyer, which had once been based at Mayport Naval Station. About 2007, it looked like Tampa was going to get the ship, but those plans fell apart, leading a Jacksonville-based member of the Adams veterans group to suggest the First Coast as a new home.

In 2008, the City Council unanimously passed a resolution supporting the idea, but that motion didn't have the legal force of an ordinance.

"It just sounded like a neat idea, but I was also kind of skeptical," said Bill Bishop, the councilman who introduced Tuesday's bill. "We sent them away saying, 'We like this in principle, but you have a lot of homework to do.' They did the homework."

That included working on raising donations, figuring out a plan for refurbishing the vessel and nailing down some details about the Southbank site. The entire project is expected to cost in the neighborhood of $9 million, mostly for the pier and repairs.

Already, the two groups involved have raised about $1 million in cash and in-kind donations, mostly for the studies required by the Navy for the application to get the ship.

O'Neil said the museum association has had preliminary talks with the state, which owns the submerged land over which the vessel would sit. Right now the city has a non-exclusive easement to use the site, and O'Neil said the state seems OK with the Adams sharing the space.

What's next

In coming weeks, the legislation will have to be approved by three council committees - Waterways, Recreation and Finance - and then go before the full council.

If it's approved, O'Neil said, it will be a major step toward getting the ship here with a projected arrival date of 2014. He said the association is ready to jump into the hard work of getting the ship fixed up and docked on the St. Johns River.

The Navy has a time limit on how long it holds onto ships that have been decommissioned, and if the museum association doesn't get moving, it will miss the opportunity.

"If we don't have it here in four years," he said, "the Navy's going to say you've had your chance, you're done."

timothy.gibbons@jacksonville. com, (904) 359-4103