Its a pissing contest between one local restaurant (Katies) and one of the largest hospitality companies in the South (Landry's). The CEO of Landry's is sponsoring part of the restoration and wants to put the ship at Pier 21 in downtown Galveston where IT WILL GET BETTER VISITOR TRAFFIC!!!!! Pier 21 is also adjacent to the cruise ship docks and the 1.3M passengers that sail from the port of Galveston annually. When I toured the Texas in drydock last year the docent told how almost weekly of attempted visits by cruise ship passengers who saw her across the harbor, grabbed a cab, and tried to get a tour (Sundays only - its a working shipyard, reservations, pay in advance).
One of the mandates given to the Battleship Texas Foundation was to move it to a place with better visitor numbers. The old San Jacinto battlefield location didn't attract sufficient numbers, and alternate sites in Beaumont or Bay City also would fail to meet the visit number goal. Beaumont couldn't keep a destroyer which was built next-door in Orange - it has since moved to Jacksonville, FL. Heck, I recommended that the Trinity River be dredged all the way to Dallas and put her there!
There was a CHANGE DOT ORG petition which the last time I looked only had about 2000 signatures which is about four percent of the 53K permanent residents of Galveston. Its a pissing contest that the Houston newspaper is pumpimg.