February 2, 2004
Mr. Roberts' neighborhood | Will Belfast let a New Jersey developer perform a large scale face-lift on its waterfront?
By Alan Elliott
Jaws dropped last fall in Belfast when Tom Roberts, a New Jersey engineering consultant and budding developer, unveiled his sweeping vision to transform the defunct Stinson Seafood sardine packing plant and much of the town's harbor into a trendy multi-use development and marina.
"It was very much out there," said Deb Hall, a local business owner and director of the town's Downtown Business Merchants Group, describing Roberts' initial design. "It was over the edge, and what everybody felt was, 'This is way too much. This can't happen.'"
Against the backdrop of other ambitious developments floated in Maine in recent years ˆ including the twin 35-story hotel towers, replete with cable car gondolas, proposed by New York developer John Cacoulidis for South Portland's waterfront, or the $650 million resort casino that targeted Sanford last year ˆ Roberts' $10 million pitch was comparatively modest. His initial sketches, presented in November, showed eight timeshare condominiums, a restaurant, 10 small retail shops, public thoroughfares and a boatyard with a 75-ton marine haul-out lift.
But the real mind-bender for Belfasters was the marina that included more than 500 boat slips, many of them strung along the town's public footbridge, a scheme that required the addition of a $500,000 section of drawbridge to accommodate passage of the boats. The coup de grace was the spinnaker-sail design of the revamped Stinson building, a scaled-down nod to the famous opera house in Sydney, Australia. "People took one look at it and said, 'Forget it. He can go back to Australia,'" said David Cassida, chairman of the Belfast Harbor Advisory Committee.
More than a few developers have struggled to gauge the pulse of this former working-class town. Abandoned by the manufacturers, as well as by the sardine and poultry processors, that once lined the mouth of the Passagassawakeag River, the 6,500-resident town lost as many as 2,000 manufacturing jobs in the 80s and 90s. A population of factory workers gradually gave way to empty-nesters and younger professionals; credit card lender MBNA moved to town in 1996, replacing much of the lost factory work with service sector jobs. Leery of the gentrification that has transformed other midcoast towns, Belfast has jealously guarded what remains of its lingering blue-collar charm, an allure many thought was threatened by Roberts' plan to redevelop the Stinson site.
But Roberts' ears were open. He began driving to Belfast from his New Jersey home every two weeks to attend council meetings. He has met with local groups and worked with planning officials and committees to understand zoning issues and local concerns. As a result, Roberts has scrapped much of his initial plan, including what he calls its "aggressive" architecture. (He admits that his architect, who disagreed with the initial spinnaker-inspired concept, has since won the argument to go with a more traditional style.) He also cut the number of slips in his proposed marina to about 160, a number below which he says the project would become "financially unfeasible."
Roberts' project, and the hurdles it has encountered, has prompted the town to review some of its waterfront zoning ordinances. Roberts hopes there's enough support on the town council to grant his project contract zoning status ˆ soon ˆ and so far he's been willing to wait as the town has debated how best to utilize its waterfront. But he can't wait indefinitely.
How restrictive is too restrictive?
The wait is the result of a rat's nest of zoning ordinances overlapping the property at the center of Roberts' plan.
Roberts optioned the old Stinson property, vacant since 2001, last year from its owner, Bath resident Richard Klingaman. The two declined to discuss the agreed upon price for the parcel ˆ including 1,000 feet of waterfront and two buildings totaling 85,000 sq. ft. ˆ that Klingaman had put on the market at about $1.5 million. If the town can't clear a path for the project and Roberts walks away, Klingaman would retain ownership.
One key snag in developing the site stems from town shoreland zoning ordinances. The rules include a Commercial Fisheries Maritime Zone, adopted during the 1980s to preserve a working waterfront. The zone helped bolster a struggling seaside economy that now includes a small fishing fleet, a few day cruise schooners, a boatyard and the city harbor. But the rules also effectively quashed redevelopment prospects for at least three former factory sites and numerous dilapidated buildings in the waterfront area. The city eventually bought two of the three factory sites, as well as a piece of the Belfast and Moosehead Lake Railroad property, and now owns six of the 23 waterfront acres in Belfast.
"When they rezoned it, they were, in my opinion, very restrictive on what can and cannot happen there," said Bruce Starrett who, as vice president and co-owner of Penobscot Frozen Foods, has a vested interest in the Stinson site next door. "And look what's happened ˆ absolutely nothing."
The rules that mothballed those properties were already under committee review when Roberts happened onto the scene, according to City Planner Wayne Marshall. Committee members and officials have since stepped up the review process, and expect zoning updates by sometime this spring. The changes will make or break Roberts' proposal, and will shape many aspects of any final design.
"Right now, city zoning basically says no [to Roberts' plan]," Marshall said. "The CFM says the use must be water dependent, not just water related. So when you consider something such as a restaurant or retail store, right off the bat you are out of the water-dependent category, so it's a non-starter."
That's not the only hitch. A wharf line restriction enacted in June says structures cannot reach beyond 100 feet from shore, which could limit Roberts' design for the docks and slips. The restriction, if retained, would likely be a deal breaker for Roberts. Floodplain ordinances present another hurdle, preventing ground-level development of the two buildings and carving any potential profits out of 85,000 sq. ft. of first floor space. Roberts contorted his plan around the restriction, leaving the underside areas open as promenade and park space, possibly with an open-air amphitheater.
And there's more. A set of more expansive local rules known as the waterfront II zone also applies to the Stinson site. Adopted a decade ago, this would allow for the broad mix of uses Roberts proposes, if not for the overlapping CFM zone. They do, however, limit building height to 30 feet above grade. This sandwiches the site's potential between a floor at least nine feet above ground, as called for by the floodplain ordinance, and a roof peak no higher than 30 feet.
The floodplain rules issue from state laws and cannot be changed. The city can, however, potentially ease the restrictions on height, usage, setbacks and wharf lines. Marshall's planning office is helping committees work through the issues, to determine just how the town wants to shape its waterfront development.
"To date it's been before five groups and everyone has kind of got a little different piece of it," Marshall said, explaining that the most likely solution is a contract zoning approach to bypass the morass of rules affecting the Stinson site. "The question we really see now is if it's appropriate to redesign some of the process to at least create the opportunity for the project to be considered."
A matter of economics
Not surprisingly, it's a process many find infinitely frustrating. But Roberts says he has faced equally challenging sites in his professional life, which has included redesigning factories that manufacture everything from chemicals and steel to scientific instruments so that they run more efficiently and profitably, often for companies in the midst of a turnaround.
In 1994, Roberts and his wife, Cate, bought an 18th century stone mansion in New Jersey that had been the center of a small industrial development in the early 1900s. After almost a decade of zoning hoops and permitting hurdles, the couple is preparing to open the Tamarack Villa in Byram, N.J. as a seven-room bed and breakfast this spring. Roberts described the experience as "a very tough political process, where anyone can hold you up legally with bogus information," but he said the challenge in Belfast is very different. "Most people here will tell me straight to my face if they don't like it and what they don't like," he said. "And then I try to figure out if there is a way to change it and still have it make business sense."
Business sense in this case boils down to a simple formula: tourist days times $250. Roberts is aiming for 100 days each year when at least 200 boating tourists would visit the complex. Figuring a boating tourist spends an average of $250 per day, according to tourism industry estimates, that would mean $5 million in annual cash flow channeled through the retail shops, marina, restaurant and other facilities.
Some of those tourists would ostensibly be drawn as owners of the timeshare condominiums, each offered with a boat slip. Roberts said he has researched timeshare markets and believes the slip/condo concept can compete against other markets where a 1/12 condo share often sells for upwards of $130,000. "We're adding a slip and selling them for significantly less than that," he said.
Roberts said if and when the basic zoning matters are resolved, a group of five partners is prepared to join the project. The group will seek additional partners, specifically a restaurant operator and a yacht maintenance and repair specialist.
There are other issues in addition to zoning that the project has yet to face. Belfast's harbor is a river mouth rather than a bay, which means Roberts must secure riparian rights from land owners whose property will be hemmed in by the marina. Another question is whether or not he can actually fit the minimum of 160 slips into the available harbor space. He has thus far been unable to squeeze in the minimum without displacing moorings leased by fishermen in the most protected portion of the harbor, moorings that aren't likely to be given up.
Mother nature might also get in a word or two, Cassida said, pointing out the six boats lost at their moorings last year in a September storm. "Belfast Harbor is open to the southeast," he said. "Most of the storms come out of the southeast, and we get mangled when there is a southeast storm."
Hall said merchants in Belfast's bustling crossroads of Main and High Streets have grown more comfortable with Roberts' recalibrated aims. But she believes he continues to miscalculate his potential returns, counting on an eight month season rather than a more realistic three month surge in the summer. Hall also said that, although the industrial sites are still vacant, Belfasters are confident development will come. The $3.5 million in bond and grant funds the town says is available to rebuild the footbridge (including the $500,000 draw section required for the Roberts plan) would seem to support Hall's assurances.
Belfast is more concerned with considering its overall development future than with grasping new plans as they come along, Hall said, and she doesn't see that changing with Roberts' Stinson plan. "In Belfast, we're historical," she said. "We just didn't want to see something plopped down there just for the sake of the city being able to utilize the land."
"It was very much out there," said Deb Hall, a local business owner and director of the town's Downtown Business Merchants Group, describing Roberts' initial design. "It was over the edge, and what everybody felt was, 'This is way too much. This can't happen.'"
Against the backdrop of other ambitious developments floated in Maine in recent years ˆ including the twin 35-story hotel towers, replete with cable car gondolas, proposed by New York developer John Cacoulidis for South Portland's waterfront, or the $650 million resort casino that targeted Sanford last year ˆ Roberts' $10 million pitch was comparatively modest. His initial sketches, presented in November, showed eight timeshare condominiums, a restaurant, 10 small retail shops, public thoroughfares and a boatyard with a 75-ton marine haul-out lift.
But the real mind-bender for Belfasters was the marina that included more than 500 boat slips, many of them strung along the town's public footbridge, a scheme that required the addition of a $500,000 section of drawbridge to accommodate passage of the boats. The coup de grace was the spinnaker-sail design of the revamped Stinson building, a scaled-down nod to the famous opera house in Sydney, Australia. "People took one look at it and said, 'Forget it. He can go back to Australia,'" said David Cassida, chairman of the Belfast Harbor Advisory Committee.
More than a few developers have struggled to gauge the pulse of this former working-class town. Abandoned by the manufacturers, as well as by the sardine and poultry processors, that once lined the mouth of the Passagassawakeag River, the 6,500-resident town lost as many as 2,000 manufacturing jobs in the 80s and 90s. A population of factory workers gradually gave way to empty-nesters and younger professionals; credit card lender MBNA moved to town in 1996, replacing much of the lost factory work with service sector jobs. Leery of the gentrification that has transformed other midcoast towns, Belfast has jealously guarded what remains of its lingering blue-collar charm, an allure many thought was threatened by Roberts' plan to redevelop the Stinson site.
But Roberts' ears were open. He began driving to Belfast from his New Jersey home every two weeks to attend council meetings. He has met with local groups and worked with planning officials and committees to understand zoning issues and local concerns. As a result, Roberts has scrapped much of his initial plan, including what he calls its "aggressive" architecture. (He admits that his architect, who disagreed with the initial spinnaker-inspired concept, has since won the argument to go with a more traditional style.) He also cut the number of slips in his proposed marina to about 160, a number below which he says the project would become "financially unfeasible."
Roberts' project, and the hurdles it has encountered, has prompted the town to review some of its waterfront zoning ordinances. Roberts hopes there's enough support on the town council to grant his project contract zoning status ˆ soon ˆ and so far he's been willing to wait as the town has debated how best to utilize its waterfront. But he can't wait indefinitely.
How restrictive is too restrictive?
The wait is the result of a rat's nest of zoning ordinances overlapping the property at the center of Roberts' plan.
Roberts optioned the old Stinson property, vacant since 2001, last year from its owner, Bath resident Richard Klingaman. The two declined to discuss the agreed upon price for the parcel ˆ including 1,000 feet of waterfront and two buildings totaling 85,000 sq. ft. ˆ that Klingaman had put on the market at about $1.5 million. If the town can't clear a path for the project and Roberts walks away, Klingaman would retain ownership.
One key snag in developing the site stems from town shoreland zoning ordinances. The rules include a Commercial Fisheries Maritime Zone, adopted during the 1980s to preserve a working waterfront. The zone helped bolster a struggling seaside economy that now includes a small fishing fleet, a few day cruise schooners, a boatyard and the city harbor. But the rules also effectively quashed redevelopment prospects for at least three former factory sites and numerous dilapidated buildings in the waterfront area. The city eventually bought two of the three factory sites, as well as a piece of the Belfast and Moosehead Lake Railroad property, and now owns six of the 23 waterfront acres in Belfast.
"When they rezoned it, they were, in my opinion, very restrictive on what can and cannot happen there," said Bruce Starrett who, as vice president and co-owner of Penobscot Frozen Foods, has a vested interest in the Stinson site next door. "And look what's happened ˆ absolutely nothing."
The rules that mothballed those properties were already under committee review when Roberts happened onto the scene, according to City Planner Wayne Marshall. Committee members and officials have since stepped up the review process, and expect zoning updates by sometime this spring. The changes will make or break Roberts' proposal, and will shape many aspects of any final design.
"Right now, city zoning basically says no [to Roberts' plan]," Marshall said. "The CFM says the use must be water dependent, not just water related. So when you consider something such as a restaurant or retail store, right off the bat you are out of the water-dependent category, so it's a non-starter."
That's not the only hitch. A wharf line restriction enacted in June says structures cannot reach beyond 100 feet from shore, which could limit Roberts' design for the docks and slips. The restriction, if retained, would likely be a deal breaker for Roberts. Floodplain ordinances present another hurdle, preventing ground-level development of the two buildings and carving any potential profits out of 85,000 sq. ft. of first floor space. Roberts contorted his plan around the restriction, leaving the underside areas open as promenade and park space, possibly with an open-air amphitheater.
And there's more. A set of more expansive local rules known as the waterfront II zone also applies to the Stinson site. Adopted a decade ago, this would allow for the broad mix of uses Roberts proposes, if not for the overlapping CFM zone. They do, however, limit building height to 30 feet above grade. This sandwiches the site's potential between a floor at least nine feet above ground, as called for by the floodplain ordinance, and a roof peak no higher than 30 feet.
The floodplain rules issue from state laws and cannot be changed. The city can, however, potentially ease the restrictions on height, usage, setbacks and wharf lines. Marshall's planning office is helping committees work through the issues, to determine just how the town wants to shape its waterfront development.
"To date it's been before five groups and everyone has kind of got a little different piece of it," Marshall said, explaining that the most likely solution is a contract zoning approach to bypass the morass of rules affecting the Stinson site. "The question we really see now is if it's appropriate to redesign some of the process to at least create the opportunity for the project to be considered."
A matter of economics
Not surprisingly, it's a process many find infinitely frustrating. But Roberts says he has faced equally challenging sites in his professional life, which has included redesigning factories that manufacture everything from chemicals and steel to scientific instruments so that they run more efficiently and profitably, often for companies in the midst of a turnaround.
In 1994, Roberts and his wife, Cate, bought an 18th century stone mansion in New Jersey that had been the center of a small industrial development in the early 1900s. After almost a decade of zoning hoops and permitting hurdles, the couple is preparing to open the Tamarack Villa in Byram, N.J. as a seven-room bed and breakfast this spring. Roberts described the experience as "a very tough political process, where anyone can hold you up legally with bogus information," but he said the challenge in Belfast is very different. "Most people here will tell me straight to my face if they don't like it and what they don't like," he said. "And then I try to figure out if there is a way to change it and still have it make business sense."
Business sense in this case boils down to a simple formula: tourist days times $250. Roberts is aiming for 100 days each year when at least 200 boating tourists would visit the complex. Figuring a boating tourist spends an average of $250 per day, according to tourism industry estimates, that would mean $5 million in annual cash flow channeled through the retail shops, marina, restaurant and other facilities.
Some of those tourists would ostensibly be drawn as owners of the timeshare condominiums, each offered with a boat slip. Roberts said he has researched timeshare markets and believes the slip/condo concept can compete against other markets where a 1/12 condo share often sells for upwards of $130,000. "We're adding a slip and selling them for significantly less than that," he said.
Roberts said if and when the basic zoning matters are resolved, a group of five partners is prepared to join the project. The group will seek additional partners, specifically a restaurant operator and a yacht maintenance and repair specialist.
There are other issues in addition to zoning that the project has yet to face. Belfast's harbor is a river mouth rather than a bay, which means Roberts must secure riparian rights from land owners whose property will be hemmed in by the marina. Another question is whether or not he can actually fit the minimum of 160 slips into the available harbor space. He has thus far been unable to squeeze in the minimum without displacing moorings leased by fishermen in the most protected portion of the harbor, moorings that aren't likely to be given up.
Mother nature might also get in a word or two, Cassida said, pointing out the six boats lost at their moorings last year in a September storm. "Belfast Harbor is open to the southeast," he said. "Most of the storms come out of the southeast, and we get mangled when there is a southeast storm."
Hall said merchants in Belfast's bustling crossroads of Main and High Streets have grown more comfortable with Roberts' recalibrated aims. But she believes he continues to miscalculate his potential returns, counting on an eight month season rather than a more realistic three month surge in the summer. Hall also said that, although the industrial sites are still vacant, Belfasters are confident development will come. The $3.5 million in bond and grant funds the town says is available to rebuild the footbridge (including the $500,000 draw section required for the Roberts plan) would seem to support Hall's assurances.
Belfast is more concerned with considering its overall development future than with grasping new plans as they come along, Hall said, and she doesn't see that changing with Roberts' Stinson plan. "In Belfast, we're historical," she said. "We just didn't want to see something plopped down there just for the sake of the city being able to utilize the land."
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