LONG BEACH, Calif. -- A Santa Monica-based development team has bid $41 million to purchase the lease to the Queen Mary and its surrounding property, signalling a strong start to what could become a bidding war for the oceanfront acreage as early as this summer...

QSDI declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy in March 2005 and has been searching for a developer to take over the lease ever since...

The company has released no detailed plans for the Queen Mary's 40-acre site...[but the company is] considering a hotel and marina for the Queen Mary site. As for the ship itself [which is owned by the city of Long Beach], he said he believed the company planned to refurbish, but make few other changes to its operations.

O&S Holdings' $41-million bid...coincides with the 40th anniversary of the ship's 1967 arrival in the Long Beach harbor...