Great Harbor starting to look like a yacht club
BY PETER B. BRACE INDEPENDENT WRITER
When Connecticut developers Gary McCarthy and Blake Drexler announced their proposal to build a second yacht club on Nantucket Harbor in the spring of 2003, McCarthy said they were answering a call from yachtsmen. By July of that year the pair said they hoped to begin construction of the $50-million club by the summer of 2005. Over the ensuing four years they have endured mounds of red tape, seemingly endless hours of review meetings, more than two dozen appeals and lawsuits, and are still awaiting the outcome of two permit reviews and an appeal.

ROB BENCHLEY/The Independent Workers installed concrete supports at the Washington St. Ext. site yesterday afternoon.

But this year, the sun appears to be rising on Great Harbor's plans. McCarthy believes much of the club's facilities will be built or at least under construction by year's end. The Junior Sailing Program building, now being built where part of Grey Lady Marine's boat storage building once stood, will definitely be ready and operational for the summer, said McCarthy.

"The Junior Sailing Program building will be the center of the sailing programs this summer and ad infinitum," he said. "We have expanded our sailing program to increase the number of Rhodes 19s and Optimists. Caroline Grant is returning to be sailing coach this summer, along with four additional sailing instructors. All of our waterfront programs will be run out of that building for the summer."

The membership and sales offices, run by programs director Maeve Markey and Megan Maltby will be housed in the newly renovated Tuckernuck Inn, which Great Harbor bought. Also, construction of the boat maintenance building and a sports barn next to Sayle's Seafood began last week.

Construction of those two buildings will continue throughout the summer. "The boat barn should be done by the late fall, early winter," McCarthy said. "It's a reasonably uncomplex structure similar to what existed on the waterside of the property."

Much of the club's infrastructure is already in the ground, having been installed in late winter and spring of this year. Great Harbor buried most of its electrical conduits on Washington Street so National Grid can pull all the wires through in the fall. The water lines are also in, along with the Stormceptors (special in-ground catch basins) and stormwater treatment units.

In total, said McCarthy, the club's drainage system will treat water flowing from six acres in this watershed.

"I think it's a big deal," he said. "I think we're removing 98 to 99 percent of the sediment from the water before it enters Nantucket Harbor from that whole watershed area."

That leaves the clubhouse and the club's proposed docks, piers and dredging for its boat haul-out operation. The former is riding on how the state's Department of Environmental Protection rules on the club's Chapter 91 Waterways program license. McCarthy said he is expecting a decision in less than 30 days. If DEP grants the license, then Great Harbor need only secure an Army Corps of Engineers permit to commence construction of the clubhouse.

"We'd actually be very happy to be in the construction of the clubhouse in 2007," he said.

Opponents of Great Harbor, namely, the nonprofit island group, Save Our Waterfront, and other individuals are keeping up the fight, changing their attack now to preserve as many waterfront uses as they had prior to the club's purchase of the property.

Speaking for herself and not Save Our Waterfront, of which she is a member, Christine Silverstein, executive director of Sustainable Nantucket, said she still advocates public access to the area and protecting the island's fisheries. As for SOW and others against Great Harbor, Silverstein can only speculate.

"I would guess that the two things that are still of great interest to anyone who is still interested in the outcome of that property is whatever the finding will be in the Chapter 91 application and also what the ConCom will find on the remand on the docks, piers and dredging side of the application," she said.

For this summer, Grey Lady Marine will continue to launch and haul boats both for club members and its customers using the existing Travelift, dock and pier. The space left empty after the club removed its boat buildings last fall will likely be used for parking and boat storage this summer.

And, Great Harbor recently purchased the Nantucket Tennis and Swim Club at 23 Nobadeer Farm Road to which its members will have access to.

"We're obviously excited by the inclusion of the tennis and swim club with the yacht club facility and openly embrace the existing members of the club into the continued use of that

facility," McCarthy said. I