Marina Dock Age

When the Washington state Department of Natural Resources (DNR) halted work in early February on the new Olympic View Marina in Seabeck, Wash., after a lease to build on the state-owned land had expired, developers saw little hope for the project’s future. However, only three days later, a Feb. 12 agreement between DNR and private developers, allowed work to continue on the water, according to (Wash.) Kitsap Sun reports.

Olympic View Marina developers and Kitsap County Commissioner Josh Brown met with legislators and DNR representatives on Feb. 11. Those meetings resulted in an agreement providing developers with a month-to-month lease option through mid-August, said developer Boyer Halvorsen.

Work began on the project Feb. 2. Equipment and barges were staged along the waterfront, and crews planned to take advantage of a two-week window during which pile driving is allowed by the state Department of Fish and Wildlife. The next window for this type of work won’t open until July.

State officials originally indicated that it could take up to a year to resolve the lease issue, and developers weren’t sure they could continue to sustain the project, which they are financing in part with personal savings, for that long. Additionally, developers were concerned that if the review process took too long, permits could expire and send them back to square one.

It had been a long road already for developers. After a two-year permitting process, the four private investors financing the project weren’t sure they had the capital to continue, as banks weren’t lending. In fact, one investor withdrew because of financial burden. With permits set to expire in a year, the three remaining investors decided they couldn’t walk away from the project and would dip into their own pocket to fund the project.

The original lease began in 2004, when the development group bought the marina property, which included an existing lease to use state-owned land below the low-tide mark. One of the developers, Wil Clark, said because the marina was inactive, the lease was placed into an inactive status, and developers paid only interest on the lease in 2007.

In late 2007, developers inquired about reactivating the lease. Clark said state officials told them that they would have to adhere to a new policy requiring all lease holders to complete a habitat review before a lease is approved. However, when they asked about what that entailed, the state said that information wasn’t available yet because the policy hadn’t been finalized.

At the end of 2009, Clark said again they attempted to reactivate the lease and hired a land-use attorney to help them understand how to complete the new requirements.

The state sent the developers’ attorney e-mail on Feb. 8 ordering the marina to not proceed with demolition work and pile driving. Fortunately, it took DNR representatives and the developers only days to reach an agreement, not months, which was a possibility as indicated by the original DNR e-mail.

Clark said he underestimated how well the public voice is heard. “I think without the folks in Seabeck, we would probably be haggling over this for a long time,” he said.

DNR said that because the marina was designed in a way that will promote and protect underwater and shoreline habitats, it agreed to a month-to-month option on Feb. 12.

Between now and July, DNR representatives will meet with marina developers to negotiate a long-term lease.

“They assured us we would have the new lease in place and executed by the middle of July, when the next fish window opens,” said Halvorsen.

The long-term lease will include details about management practices for the marina, including the control of night lighting, how the marina handles pressure washing of machinery and vessels, washing boats out of water, limiting boat wakes in near shore areas, and other practices meant to contribute to the recovery of Hood Canal, according to “Ear to the Ground,” a DNR blog posted on Feb. 12.

With authorization from the USDA Forest Service, Shasta Lake Resorts, LP of Redding Calif., officially announced the initiation of a yearlong Master Development Planning process on Feb. 3. The development plan will permanently consolidate many of its services and facilities located at Lakeview and Sugarloaf marinas to Jones Valley Marina on Shasta Lake. Work on the reconfiguration plan began in 2009.

Consolidating the three marina resorts will allow Jones Valley Resort to increase its luxury houseboat rental operation and potentially expand the existing full-service amenities, according to the company.

In addition to making 85 houseboat rentals available year-round, the merger would create approximately 300 slips for private vessel owners, including concrete fingered houseboat moorage slips and covered moorage slips for small boats.

During the reconfigurations, Lakeview Marina will be non-operational, and Sugarloaf Marina will offer reduced marina services, including private moorage. Jones Valley Marina will be open. Shasta Lake Resorts expects the work to take place over the next year, and the consolidation will be completed by 2011.

For an expansion project at Blackwell Island Marina in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, Hagadone Hospitality will dredge 18,000 cubic yards of material tainted with heavy metals. It will haul the material to a landfill, instead of storing it in the Spokane River floodplain, according to a Jan. 20 report in The (Idaho) Spokesman-Review.

Hagadone Hospitality wanted to dispose of the dredged soil from Lake Coeur d’Alene in lined pits on the island, which lies where the Spokane River flows out of the lake.

Burying the soil would have required ongoing water quality monitoring and restricted the property’s future use. After a cost analysis, company officials decided that hauling the material to an approved landfill was a better option, said John Barlow, president of the Hagadone real estate holding company.

Many of the region’s environmental groups hailed the decision. “We consider this a victory for anyone who was concerned about placing a hazardous waste facility atop an island that experiences frequent flood events,” said Susan Drunheller, the Idaho Conservation League’s North Idaho associate.

The project will set the bar for future dredging, said Rick Eichstaedt, who heads the Center for Justice’s Spokane Riverkeeper program. He praised the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) for the project’s stringent monitoring guidelines, which lead to Hagadone Hospitality’s decision to dispose of the contaminated dirt in a landfill.

During dredging, DEQ will require Hagadone Hospitality to use cofferdams to limit erosion, and any clean dirt dredged from the lake will be used as fill on the island.

The overall project, which will be done over six years, will enlarge and deepen the marina for large yachts. Barlow said the company still needs a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers before construction can begin.

The Riviera Beach City Council, sitting as the Community Redevelopment Agency, approved a new scaled-down redevelopment plan for the city marina. They voted unanimously to begin negotiations with Rybovich Boat Co., working in conjunction with Viking Developers, to expand Rybovich’s megayacht business at Riviera Beach Marina, according to reports in The Palm Beach Post.

Viking Developers was the only company to respond to the city’s request for proposals to overhaul the city marina in September 2008. Its original $500 million plan proposed an overhaul of the marina and the addition of a mixed-used development, including retail space for shops and restaurants, a hotel, offices, and a public market.

The new scaled-down plan for International Harbor at Riviera Beach calls for $59 million of work to be done in phases through 2014, including many of the original features but on a smaller scale. Work would begin with renovations to the marina, which are being paid for with $5 million in county waterfront access bond money, and leasing the south end of the marina to Rybovich for a megayacht service yard.

Currently, Rybovich services yachts at its marina in West Palm Beach is looking for another location near deep water to handle boats, generally 250 feet and longer. The proposed megayacht service yard would handle four big boats at a time, removing about 40 public boat slips to make room.

As part of the proposal, Rybovich has agreed to train city residents to work on the megayachts, according to Dawn Pardo, city council member. She also said the proposal would achieve several of the city’s goals for the marina. It would generate income for the city, increase the tax base, and create 30 to 35 jobs, while leaving most of the marina open to the public.

Rybovich said the megayacht yard could be in operation by the end of this year. It plans to use a service building at the site of the marina’s dry boat storage barn, which is scheduled to be torn down.

Construction of other proposed improvements would not follow a predetermined sequence. They would be built according to market conditions, said Mike Clark, vice president of Vikings Developers.

Fox Valley Park District trustees approved an approximately $170,000 bid from Stiles Inc. of Rockford, Ill., to dredge Veteran’s Island Marina in Aurora, Ill., according to a Feb. 8 (Ill.) Daily Herald report.

The dredging will restore adequate depth around the newly refurbished boat dock and floating pier. The marina expects to begin dredging by the end of February and be completed by mid-June.

Several floods in 2008 left large deposits of silt in the marina. Later that winter, jagged ice floes were forced ashore and severely damaged the boat dock, according to Jeff Long, park spokesman.

After repairing the launch, rebuilding the dock, and extending the floating pier, crews noticed the silt problem and the low water levels, said Bill Donnell, the district’s director of natural resources, forestry, and special projects.

Local boater Charlie Zine said the long overdue project is needed because eight-foot depths at the marina were now around one to two feet.

“Keeping the marina clear of accumulated silt is an ongoing challenge,” Donnell said. “This is a popular boating area and the district is committed to making the marina and boat launch fully operable at all times.”

In early December 2009, the Petoskey, Mich., City Council approved a lease agreement that will ultimately sell bonds as the funding mechanism for two recreation projects, according to a Dec. 8 (Petoskey, Mich.) News-Review report. The city proposes bonding to provide $1 million toward the construction of an additional pier at the city marina and $2.9 million for other recreational amenities along a local river corridor.

The city council voted 5-0 in favor of the agreement. This was for an amended version of one that the city and its building authority passed earlier in 2009. The new agreement eliminated $1.5 million in bond funding for an additional public safety facility.

Under the newest agreement, the building authority would sell bonds to generate funding for the marina construction and other river amenities and maintain ownership until the bonds are repaid. They city would lease the amenities from the building authority during repayment.

Bonds financing the marina expansion are to be repaid with revenues provided by marina users.

The city is currently seeking contractor bids and expects to receive them by February 2010.

The city of Beverly, Mass., selected two companies to complete $2 million worth of improvements to its waterfront property, including the city-owned marina, according to a Dec. 29 report from The Salem (Mass.) News.

For $1.78 million, Sea Shore Contracting of Randolph, Mass., will rebuild the seawall, demolish the city-owned building, and install new concrete floating docks at the marina.

Bellingham Marine of York, Pa., which turned in the lowest bid to the city, will build and deliver the concrete floats for $364,736. The 6,824-square-foot floating docks will include 24 slips and connect to part of an existing wooden floating dock to create a ferry landing, according to John Colonel, general manager of Bellingham.

Work is expected to begin mid-January, according to Mayor Bill Scanlon, and will be paid for with a $2.5 million state grant that the city received earlier this year.

Scanlon said the new concrete floats should be installed in time for the city-owned marina to open for boating season next year.

A year and nine months after a Barnstable Harbor bulkhead in Mass., collapsed in a heavy rainstorm, a cost-sharing agreement between the town and the state will cover repair costs, according to a Dec. 22 report in The (Waltham, Mass.) Daily News Tribune. The state will cover up to 75 percent or $3.75 million for repairing the bulkhead.

As part of the 2010 capital plan, the Barnstable Town Council had already approved $750,000 for the bulkhead. The remaining $525,000 will come from the marina enterprise fund reserve account – a move unanimously approved by the council in late December 2009.

In March 2008, a storm caused a 30-foot section of the wooden bulkhead to fall into the ocean. Approximately 450 square feet of land in the harbor was lost. Though the town did take action to stabilize the bulkhead, the break continued to pose a safety hazard as exterior parking spots began to erode away.

Since the collapse of the bulkhead, the marina has lost close to 20 of the approximately 90 slips that were operating prior to the collapse.

The town hopes to begin the work prior to the start of the 2010 marina season, but there’s still concern about how much the work will disrupt marina operations, according to Ted Theodores, president of the Friends of Barnstable Harbor, a local group who worked to facilitate the bulkhead repair.

In December 2009, the Army Corps of Engineers completed a dredging project at San Leandro Marina in San Leandro, Calif., removing 90,000 cubic yards of silt from the harbor and channel that leads to San Leandro Bay, according to a Jan. 7 Castro Valley Forum report. Though the long overdue dredge ensures that the majority of the marina’s boats can now maneuver without fail during low tide, City Manager Stephen Hollister said this is only a temporary fix to a more permanent problem.

The man-made San Leandro Marina, which was built upon mud flats, will shoal again within four to seven years without continually dredging the area, Hollister said. Eight years had passed since the last dredging at the marina.

For now, the maintenance dredge brought the harbor and channel to an acceptable minimum depth of five feet below the average low tide. The dredging project was paid for in part by $1 million from the Federal Reinvestment and Recovery Act.

Hollister also said the dredged sediment could be costly for the city. Currently, the mud is drying out near the marina, while the city looks for a permanent disposal place after the sediment completely dries in 18 months.

Trucking fees to move the sediment could run as high as $3 million, said Hollister, who would prefer a spot close to the marina.

St. Johns Yacht Harbor, part of a dockominium project in Charleston, S.C., was taken over by a court-appointed receiver at the end of last year, after not making its loan payments, according to a Dec. 31 report in The (Charleston, S.C.) Post and Courier.

The owners, Stono Marina Partners of Washington, D.C., owe about $25 million to National Bank of South Carolina, according to a lawsuit filed by the bank.

“The market got the best of us, as well as everybody else,” said Bob Pilcher, who oversaw the marina until the receiver took it over in December 2009. “Apparently, it got down to the point where there was no money left to continue pumping into the project.”

Boat owners had expressed interest in the St. Johns marina that would accommodate boats up to 35 feet long, particularly in its individual dock slip lifts that would hoist 16,000-pound vessels out of the water with the click of a garage-door like device. Prices for dock slips started at $125,000.

In September 2009, Stono Marina Partners had nearly two-dozen slips under contract, and the potential buyers, in some cases, walked away from their agreements, Pilcher said.

The marina continues to operate under new management but with uncertainty over what will happen with the owner’s original plans for the facility.

In 2006, IBG Partners formed Stono Marina Partners to buy neighboring Buzzard’s Roost Marina and Stono Marina for $22 million with plans to combine them into one 430-slip operation.