City accepts $600K Beauport grant for Fort infrastructure upgrades

Discussion

PLEASE NOTE CHANGES IN POLICY: Commenters are required to have a username with a valid and verified email address. Gloucestertimes.com reserves the right to ban the IP address of any commenter (person) found using multiple aliases under multiple e-mail addresses in a deceptive manner. Posts that do not meet site standards, which can be found here, will be removed.

If you are experiencing problems logging in or posting comments, please contact Disqus' help center by clicking here.

comments powered by Disqus

September 6, 2012

City accepts $600K Beauport grant for Fort infrastructure upgrades

By Steven Fletcher Staff Writer The Gloucester Daily Times Thu Sep 06, 2012, 04:11 PM EDT

Beauport Gloucester LLC is offering the city $600,000 for the engineering costs of Fort infrastructure upgrades to go toward improvements around the site of Beauport’s proposed hotel on Pavilion Beach and Commercial Street.

City Councilors voted to accept the funds from Beauport during a meeting last night. The council also approved applying for the grant last night, with an eye toward MassWorks money delivering infrastructure improvements that grow the city’s economy.

The grant would be used in conjunction with a $5 million MassWorks grant the city is seeking to improve water, sewer and drainage services along Commercial Streeet and through the Fort. But Beauport’s extension of the grant is not contingent on the state’s awarding the grant to the city, as reported earlier today, according to John Cunningham, who is serving as Beauport Gloucester’s local attorney for the project.

Beauport Gloucester LLC, the company formed and owned by New Balance owner James Davis and Cruiseport’s Sheree DeLorenzo and has filed a special permit application for a 101-room, $20-$25 million hotel project on the site of the Birdseye building on Commercial Street. City Councilor Joe Ciolino noted that Beauport’s offer for the infrastructure upgrades is not, however, tied to an approval for the hotel permits, saying there were “no strings attached.”

“You have the job creation aspect of the hotel development, and they need modern infrastructure to support that development,” said Mayor Carolyn Kirk. “All along Commercial Street, all the businesses on the Inner Harbor could benefit from better and improved infrastructure.”

We will update this story here at gloucestertimes.com as more information becomes available. To have text updates regarding this story and other local breaking news coverage sent to your mobile phone, just sign up for the Times free text-alert service on the gloucestertimes.com homepage.

For more up-to-date coverage, follow the Times news team on Facebook and on Twitter.com @gdtnews and @gdtsports. For much more on this story, look to tomorrow’s editions of the Gloucester Daily Times and gloucestertimes.com.

Steven Fletcher can be reached at 978-283-7000, x3455, or at sfletcher@gloucestertimes.com. You can also follow him on Twitter @StevenGDT.