The big floating glass box which has been a fixture at the Tauranga Bridge Marina for nearly a year has gone to a new home in Auckland.

The box-on-a-barge was towed to its new home last week. Former owner of the glass box, Mark Scapens has not responded to calls.

The floating glass box is now in Auckland.

The glass box was formerly moored at the southern end of The Strand reclamation as the Kestrel Landing, until it broke free from its moorings in an easterly storm in March 2012.

Pressure from the heavy gusts on the box-shaped structure knocked over the piles securing the landward side, requiring it to be moved – and it's been at the end of one of the bridge marina piers until last week.

It's the last link to a slow-motion waterfront saga, involving the former Auckland ferry The Kestrel, the land barge and the Tauranga City Council.

The 37 metre-long 105-year-old former Auckland ferry The Kestrel was brought to Tauranga in 2004 as a floating restaurant. It's understood the barge and glass box landing stage/annex was an unexpected addition for the council.

The restaurant business foundered and was later the subject of a Tauranga jury trial, which resulted in Tauranga businessman Michael Colosimo being sentenced to two years and six months jail in 2011 for fraudulently overstating the financial position of The Kestrel on the Landing bar and restaurant. He was found guilty of overstating the businesses profits to Michael and Sue Dyke.

When the Dykes left, the restaurant remained empty for two years.

An attempt to return the glass box to its waterfront location was banned by Tauranga City Council in October 2012, when then-councillors voted 8-3 to not allow its reappearance there after Mark Scapens was unable to negotiate a lease extension with the city council.

Mark said at the time the council's refusal to offer a viable term meant no business owner was prepared to invest, as there was no insurance there was enough time to recoup the initial outlay.

He eventually put The Kestrel on the market. It was bought by the Kestrel Preservation Society and towed out of town in November 2010.

The preservation society is currently seeking $7.2 million required to bring the ferry up to survey for fare-paying passengers.

The Kestrel is the last of the big double-ended Waitemata Harbour ferries still afloat.