Town pursues purchase of Island Spirits property
$3.5 million purchase would take shuttles off street, create citizen parking
BY MARY LANCASTER INDEPENDENT WRITER
From the 1950s until 1984, you could conveniently fill your gas tank or get your car repaired in town at the Island Motors service station on Washington Street. When the garage and station closed - due primarily to exhorbitant costs associated with the installation of upgraded underground fuel tanks required by new environmental laws - the business was transformed into Island Spirits, a liquor store owned and operated by the Reith family, the same family who ran the garage and gas station.

The Island Spirits building, buried in snow after the January 2005 blizzard. The Independent file

Now the Reiths, William Jr. and his wife Carol, want to sell the property at 10 and 12 Washington St. and the town would like to buy it to use as a transportation center for the Nantucket Regional Transit Authority's shuttle buses. That action, the subject of a warrant article at the July 26 Special Town Meeting, would create a bus hub on the liquor store property and free up about 10 citizen parking spots along the road where buses now park between runs.

At tonight's selectmen's meeting, the board is expected to sign a Finding of Uniqueness about the purchase to conform with state law requirements for publication with the Central Register for 30 days, after which a binding purchase and sales agreement with Carol and Bill Reith, pending Town Meeting approval, could become effective as soon as August 10.

The agreed upon selling price is $3.5 million, an arrangement that town officials find attractive and reasonable for the 9,604-square foot parcel that consists of two properties that could potentially become three parcels under current zoning.

"It's a really good deal for the town and I look forward to working with the Reiths on it," said Selectman Brian Chadwick, who explained that the property line is located at the wall separating Island Spirits from The English Trunk Show Company. The liquor store side, and an adjacent free-standing shack, would be torn down. A shed roof to protect bus customers from bad weather would be constructed off the Trunk Show building and all shuttle buses except the Madaket and Jetties Beach buses that depart from the Whaling Museum on Broad Street would move off Washington Street and onto the new lot.

"The property is perfect - it's one part of the puzzle," said Chadwick. "This is something we're looking at [and] working with National Grid, Nantucket Island Resorts and First Winthrop with the property on Candle Street to improve the downtown area for parking, commercial and housing [uses]. That whole downtown area is ripe for redevelopment."

Nantucket Regional Transit Authority director Paula Leary and Selectman Patty Roggeveen support the concept for relocation of buses, as does Selectmen Chair Whitey Willauer.

"I think we do need a bus turnaround and parking place because now [the buses] are parked before commercial businesses and the fumes bother people," Willauer said. "The use of [the Reith property] is probably the best you can find. If we start digging down we'll probably hit hazardous waste, but it's capped, and because the buses only have to drive over it, it's the least objectionable alternative and we need a bus turnaround. This makes sense because you don't need a lot of space. A lot of reasons make it an ideal fit for the town."

Historically, Albert Manning started Island Chevrolet at the location during the 1940s. William Reith, Sr. and Ruppert Warren bought the business in the early 1950s and kept it going for more than three decades as Island Motors, a gas and repair station. The late Lorraine Reith, Bill Jr.'s mother, played an important part in the garage operation as manager and bookkeeper for many years, with the latter a role that she continued with Island Spirits until shortly before her death

about a year ago. I