Fort targeted for revitalization; mayor says hotel 'within reach'

By Richard Gaines
Staff writer

Tue, May 13 2008

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Mayor Carolyn Kirk has put her focus on the Fort, Commercial Street and Harbor Cove — the original center of the city's maritime economy — as the starting point for waterfront revitalization — and has announced that a Marriott hotel is within reach.

The effort to jump start the water-based economy is the search for growth she described in her inaugural address as "essential" to the city's recovery.

On Tuesday night, at a briefing for new councilors that turned into broad-based community caucus, Kirk outlined a fast-track approach toward consensus on the political strategy and focus for shaking free of state and federal strictures to non-fishing related economic activity along the waterfront.

"No question, it starts on Commercial Street and Harbor Cove," Kirk said yesterday.

She revealed that a hotel developer — with Marriott's blessing — was ready to begin the process of obtaining permits for a hotel on the Birdseye property, once the city eliminates a zoning hurdle and begins upgrading the area where immigrant fishermen settled and hundreds of commercial boats snuggled along the piers before the Civil War.

Kirk set June 30 as the deadline for gathering and integrating ideas and reaction to her approach — which includes four disparate concepts that were on the table when she took office in January:

r Rezoning the Commercial Street-Fort Square peninsula to stimulate economic activity, including the hotel;

r Trading development rights along Rogers Street from St. Peter's Square through I-4, C-2, a 2-acre vacant lot, to the Building Center lumber yard in exchange for a 50-foot-wide stretch on the waterfront to develop a public esplanade and marina;

r Leveraging more commercial dockage everywhere by allowing development of recreational slips as long as working boats get one in four new spaces; and,

r Pulling the eastern shore from Cripple Creek to Rocky Neck out from under state control to allow market forces to guide redevelopment.

Only the rezoning of the fort area was proposed in a draft harbor plan written by consultants financed by the state and left to gather dust as the election drew near last fall.

Kirk described it as inadequate, but its main author, Jack Wiggins — from a think tank at UMass Boston — appeared Monday night to explain that it went as far as the state would allow.

Kirk has proclaimed the need for the citizens to write their own plan that dares to go beyond limits imposed by the state.

"We maxed out under that document (the draft harbor plan)," she told perhaps 100 citizens who sat around a central, U-shaped table in the City Hall auditorium occupied by the council and the Planning Board. The Planning Board has provided much impetus for action on harbor zoning.

Councilor Jason Grow, who filed a rezoning order in December, urged the city to go forward on that track while working through the more complicated legal mechanics involving the state.

The proposed hotel site is one of the few along the harbor that is zoned for marine industrial activities, but outside the state's Designated Port Area. Changing zoning to allow the hotel would trigger the effort to get permits for one, said hotel developer Peter Maggio. He also said the development team would need certainty that the entire peninsula was being brought back.

Kirk quoted a Maggio partner as saying, "When my guests arrive, they need to know that they've arrived somewhere."

Kirk described her idea as "building consensus from the top down and all around." But she told the Times yesterday she is committed to a general rezoning and opposed "spot zoning" of Maggio's property.

"Because we are, we don't want to stay hamstrung by state regulation," Kirk said. "We need to demonstrate consensus."

Monday's event was billed as a restart, update and introduction for new councilors. Public comment of any kind was put off until later meetings. But the range of attendees' interests — from Capt. Joe's seafood in East Gloucester and Cape Pond Ice to preservationists Helen Garland and Marsha Hart — made it clear that consensus won't come easily. Recreational marinas, restaurants, commercial fishermen, suppliers and private citizens concerned about authenticity were well represented, as were citizens interested in protecting the harbor's authenticity.

Historian and retired businessman Richard Rosenfeld, who conceived the idea of a public promenade and marina in exchange for development rights, was describing his concept, aimed at creating new tax revenues and the ambiance of Mediterranean fishing villages.

He proclaimed he had "no dog in this fight," but said one property owner and commercial fisherman thinking about Rosenfeld's idea had decided he was a "communist."

Bob Gillis, a vice president at Cape Ann Savings Bank, briefed the meeting on the proposal by an ad hoc group of waterfront property owners and the Chamber of Commerce, which Kirk has made one of the four legs of her platform.

He said the group "flatly rejected residential development," but put its emphasis on encouraging new dockage as long as existing commercial slips remain and 25 percent of new slips are reserved for commercial use.

Richard Gaines can be reached at rgaines@gloucestertimes.com .

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