New floating houses give new meaning to living on the water

PANAMA CITY, Fla. (WJHG/WECP) - What’s the white box in the bay next to the Hathaway Bridge?

It gives new meaning to living on the water.

“This is a floating tiny home sustainability built high-performance concrete and materials great for the environment,” said Skipper Turks, executive with Arktide. “The hole is actually designed to promote marine life.”

The company that owns it, Arktide, says fish and barnacles live underneath, a design that can help the ecosystem.

“Living in the environment without harming it,” said Turks. That’s the goal of this floating object in the bay. it’s the next generation of tiny homes.”

Turks says four of these 12 x 12 cubes can be connected to make a home.

“It’s going to be like an efficiency condo or apartment that you can either live on nearshore or you can rent out Airbnb or VRBO,” said Turks.

The idea is you can take these homes with you, wherever you go.

“Bays, estuaries, rivers and lakes,” said Turks. “A lot of people want to put them behind their homes behind their docks as overflow basically living.”

They can be put on a trailer or even towed by boat.

“A lot of people want to take them to Shell Island to move or stay at Shell Island for 3 or 4 days and take your pontoon boat or jet ski and go fishing for a day and come back and have an air-conditioned place to stay,” said Turks.

These homes are currently being sold for 100-thousand dollars.

“We have a waiting list. It is very affordable, and everyone likes to live on the water, and we are running out of land,” said Turks.

Another way these homes would help the environment is they have solar panels on them.

“We’re looking at other alternatives like wind energy,” said Turks.

We’re told they already have reservations to create a green community in North Carolina. We’re told these off-the-grid homes are set to be delivered to buyers between November and March.