🔒Boats & notes: Midcoast economy depends on boats and tourism, but also needs housing

The midcoast has had a number of key developments of late, including the sale of a major boatyard, a yacht launch by a significant boatbuilder and debate over housing for the “missing middle.”

A key boatyard is sold to private equity-backed firm

Front Street Shipyard, a boatbuilder and marina on the Belfast waterfront, is slated to be sold to Safe Harbor Marinas, the largest marina and superyacht servicing business in the U.S.

Earlier this year, the shipyard’s owner, Dubba LLC, entered into a purchase and sale agreement with SH Marinas LLC.

The acquisition is scheduled to close Dec. 31, Greg Glavin, Safe Harbor’s regional vice president, wrote in a letter to the Belfast Planning Board.

“Safe Harbor plans to maintain the property as a working marina and boatyard,” Glavin wrote. “We are committed to continuous investment in the asset and its employees, with an estimated $5 million investment planned within the first three years of ownership. Beyond this initial investment, Safe Harbor will continue to allocate resources for ongoing maintenance.”

In April, Safe Harbor Marinas was itself sold by real estate investment company Sun Communities Inc. (NYSE: SUI) to Blackstone Infrastructure, which is part of Blackstone Inc. (NYSE: BX), the world’s largest alternative asset manager with more than $1 trillion in assets under management, according to its website.

Safe Harbor, which is based in Dallas, had $965.8 million in revenue in 2024 and a network of 138 marinas, serving over 39,000 members.

Established in 2011, Front Street Shipyard started with a $13 million investment by a partnership that included four Maine boatbuilders.

The boatyard, at 101 Front St., revitalized Belfast’s working waterfront, tearing down derelict buildings and adding state-of-the-art facilities.

The yard offers boatbuilding, restoration, refits and marina services, taking on yachts as large as 200 feet.

JB Turner, one of the principals in Dubba LLC and a 2017 Mainebiz Next List honoree, declined to comment on the prospective deal.

Belfast debates addition of ‘missing middle’ housing

Belfast continues to make headway in its quest to address the housing shortage in the Waldo County city.

In August, the planning board requested further information for an ongoing proposal for a 200-unit “missing middle” condominium development and approved a Waldo Community.

Action Partners project to build an affordable 60-unit multi-family building, with construction anticipated to start in August 2026.

The board recently heard two additional proposals, one for eight lots for single-family and multi-family development and the other for 10 apartments in three buildings.

Carl Savitz of Big Bridge Ventures LLC proposed a subdivision called Highview. The proposal is to divide the site, at the corner of High and Pierce streets in a residential neighborhood near the downtown area, into eight lots on a 2.37-acre site that could support single-family homes and multifamily development in the future. The specifics of the development haven’t been worked out yet.

The site has existing buildings. A commercial building is on the western portion of the site and houses several commercial units. A residential structure is on the northern portion and is utilized as a two-story apartment building. Those two buildings will remain, Bub Fournier, the city’s director of planning and codes, told the board.

Further development would include the subdivided lots plus open space, street trees, landscaping and pedestrian lighting.

Savitz anticipated that the estimated cost to build a road and install utilities would be $500,000. He didn’t have a total project cost and didn’t specify which market segment he was targeting.

Two neighbors expressed concern about the potential for increased traffic, high speeds and multiple driveways.

“Pierce Street, with that very formidable hill, is challenging right now to drivers and gets a lot of traffic, a lot of pedestrians and, once you reach a certain point on that hill, there’s a real blind [spot] to the top of the hill: You can’t see if anyone’s coming down,” said one resident.

Another said of the traffic situation, “It’s just awful the way it is.”

Regarding a proposal for the Vine Place Apartments, the planning board considered a site plan amendment for a proposal from Randy Cornelius and his company, Beyond the Meter Inc., for a multi-family housing development on the corner of Vine Street and Waldo Avenue, northwest of U.S. Route 1 and the downtown area.

The proposal includes Building A, a new 3,855-square-foot structure for 4 three-bedroom residential apartments near Vine Street; Building B, a new 2,072-square-foot structure for four two-bedroom residential apartments; and Building C, a renovation that’s underway of an existing 1,920-square-foot structure, which formerly housed a cannabis business called New World Organics, for two residential apartments.

Other elements include a parking lot with seven spaces, grading and drainage improvements, landscape improvements, limited lighting and utilities to serve the two new buildings.

Primary access to the two new buildings would be from Vine Street.

The partially developed site has an existing 16,200-square-foot office building fronting Waldo Avenue, called Park Place Suites, existing paved parking areas and exiting entrances off Waldo Avenue and Vine Street.

About a half-dozen local residents opposed the project. One said the proposal is not an appropriate scale for the neighborhood, but added she was in favor of thoughtful growth. Another expressed concern that the scale of development could increase the number of residents, lights and loss of trees on Vine Street, and said a more modestly scaled building would be better suited for the site.

A couple of speakers said Vine Street is a close-knit, single-family, owner-occupied neighborhood and the proposal would be out of place.

Mike Hurley, a member of the city’s housing and property development committee who said he was speaking as a resident, spoke in favor of the development, saying there’s a need for missing middle housing to help bolster the city’s economic growth.

Hurley said a lot of affordable housing is being built in Belfast and there’s also high-end housing.

“Those two ends of the spectrum are very well taken care of in Belfast,” he said. ”What’s missing is what’s being proposed here. Belfast needs what’s called the ‘missing middle.’”

The board asked the developer to initiate further discussion with neighborhood residents.

“This is very appropriate for that location,” said board member Lewis Baker. “We need housing in the city.”

Rockport Marine launches yacht three years in making

After three years of construction, a midcoast boatbuilder launched a 95-foot, custom-built sailing yacht and began tests of its internal systems, as the final stage toward the owners’ plan to cruise the world.

The launch took place earlier last month in Rockport Harbor.

Rockport Marine built the yacht Ouzel to the specifications of Langan Design Partners, of Newport, R.I., with interior design by Mark Whiteley Design, of Lymington, United Kingdom.

The build uses a wood-composite construction technique, which combines an engineered blend of cold-molded wood, carbon fiber, a type of fiberglass called “E-glass” and foam coring.

Rhode Island firm MCM Newport led the project on behalf of Ouzel’s owners.

A yacht like Ouzel would typically be built in Europe, and likely from aluminum or possibly composite, Sam Temple, Rockport Marine’s president, told Mainebiz earlier this year.

Temple added, “This is our bid to compete in that space.”

Ouzel’s owners bucked the trend and built the yacht on U.S. shores rather than in Europe.

“I think there’s a sort of common perception that you can’t build a boat like this in the United States any longer and I think that when the world sees what we are creating here, they’ll realize you can build a world-class superyacht that stands shoulder to shoulder with the European boats if not even higher right here in Rockport Marine in Rockport, Maine,” said Peter Wilson, president of MCM Newport.

The project began in late 2021 when MCM Newport approached Langan Design Partners for the design. Rockport Marine started construction in August 2023.

The owners are experienced boaters whose previous yacht was a 64-footer from a high-end builder in Finland called Baltic Yachts.

Founded in 1962, Rockport Marine specializes in custom wooden boat construction, restoration and design. Powered by a 60-strong crew, the yard stores and maintains a fleet of classic wooden boats and usually has some large restorations and/or new builds in progress. Going into this winter, the yard has a restoration in the shop and several potential new and refit projects.