Developers recently dropped plans to construct high-end condominiums at a vacated seafood factory on Belfast’s waterfront, leaving residents with mixed feelings and the local fishing community in limbo. It is the second time such a development scheme has fallen through since Stinson Seafood closed in 2001.
Westport Capital Partners proposed to construct between 40 to 46 luxury condominiums with on-site boat storage to sell for $600,000 to $800,000. Belfast town manager Joe Slocum said he believed the high-scale project would have spurred the waterfront’s economic revitalization.
“This project was very much looked at as the first domino,” Slocum said.
In Westport Capital, Slocum believed the town had found a good economic partner. Local Westport project managers offered to trade rights-of-way, exchanging a strip of waterfront land in front of the condominiums for a town right-of-way that cut through the property. Westport also agreed to build an enhanced public dock with an exclusive section for local fishermen who had their moorings removed during the first development scheme.
“The general public of Belfast was going to get more waterfront access than ever before,” Slocum said.
Town officials fully expected the project to go through, Slocum said, until they received a phone call from Westport Capital canceling the development in July. The company’s business plan called for all condominiums to be sold within three years after construction; a last-minute economic analysis showed such a goal wasn’t feasible. The move caught everyone off guard, he said, including local Westport Capital project managers.
“Our jaws dropped along with our heads,” he said.
Slocum speculated the project was a victim of the recent turbulent housing market. City planner Wayne Marshall pointed out the property has significant shortcomings, including a high water table that would make the first floor unlivable because of danger to flooding. “You’re building a whole floor that has minimal value,” Marshall said.
But long-time city councilor Roger Lee felt Westport Capital’s profit expectations may have been too high.
“The hardest part for me to understand is why you would need to sell 40 condos to recover a profit,” Lee said.
Not everyone was sad to see the project fail. Dan Clark lives about 30 feet away from the Stinson factory.
“It’s in my sight all the time,” he said.
Clark and other abutters to the Stinson site were upset the city agreed to waive normal zoning requirements. The first developers, Old Belfast Bridge LLC, were granted contract rezoning by Belfast town officials, allowing them to exceed zoning height restrictions. The contract rezoning agreement still would have applied to Westport Capital, and the most recent design called for condominiums that would have been as tall as 70 feet. Clark said the condominiums would have blocked the ocean view, hampering the town’s tourist-trade economy.
“Tourists are not going to come to look at condos,” Clark said.
Local realtor Peg Worth sold most of the homes abutting the Stinson property and is currently Clark’s broker. She estimated the condominium project would have caused Clark’s home value to plummet some 40 percent because of the diminished view.
It isn’t just land value that’s at stake, she said, but the mixed-use character of Belfast’s waterfront. She worries waterfront access will become permanently lost because of a piecemeal planning approach that disregards the town’s comprehensive plan.
“Long-term planning is a thing we’re missing right now,” Worth said.
Both Clark and Worth proposed a mixed-use plan for the Stinson area that would combine retail and residential space with space for boat repair and lobstermen. The only way for that to happen, Worth said, is for a group of concerned townspeople to buy the Stinson area before another condominium proposal is launched.
It remains to be seen how much interest there is in reviving a true working waterfront in the area. Belfast harbor committee-member Michael Cunning pointed out the two proposals to come forward for the Stinson site have both been high-end residential developments.
Fellow committee-member and Belfast lobsterman David Black said the number of lobstermen operating in Belfast harbor has shrunk in his time from 25 full-time to 12 part-time operators. Black said most local lobstermen were in favor of the newest development proposal because it provided them with better dock space and permanent moorings, something they haven’t had since being displaced by the first development scheme.
“We were looking for a permanent place to call home,” Black said.
Town manager Slocum wouldn’t comment on current inquires about the Stinson site since no formal proposals have been introduced, but he believes condominiums will be in the site’s future.
“Do I think one day there’s going to be expensive residential property there? Absolutely,” Slocum said.