Dive Brief:

• One of two mysterious barges that were understood to be innovative retail tech showrooms planned by Google was towed out of port by a tugboat in Portland, ME last week, according to the Portland Press Herald. 

• Planned interior work on the barge has been canceled and it is being scrapped and re-purposed for use by another company, the Portland Press Herald reported last week.

• The barges, in San Francisco Bay and Casco Bay in Maine, had garnered much speculation and anticipation about Google’s plans to eventually unveil floating innovative retail destinations on each coast.

Dive Insight:

Google has always been tight-lipped about its barges. It took a while to figure out that they were Google projects at all. The barges, therefore, were already conversation pieces, but it looks like they — and the retail exhibition spaces they were to become — are over before they began.