Aquidneck Island sees opportunity in sale of surplus
Navy land
07:18 AM EDT on Wednesday, March 25, 2009
By Richard Salit
Journal Staff Writer
What greeted the municipal officials who piled out of the tour bus at stops along the western shore of Aquidneck Island yesterday weren’t simply wintry gusts blowing off the water — they were winds of change.
With the Navy poised to dispose of nearly 400 acres of prime real estate — much of it on, or with views of, Narragansett Bay — the officials boarded the bus to get a close at look the parcels and to hear what their future may hold.
As envisioned by community and regional planners, the sale of the seven tracts of Navy land will create a remarkable opportunity to give the western shore an extreme makeover by stimulating economic development, improving transportation, preserving wildlife habitats and expanding recreation.
The visions include a bike path, nature trails, a waterfront park with a fishing pier, windmills, and an expansion of marine-related businesses at Melville. The visions also include promoting intermodal transportation through better access to the Newport Secondary rail line and an alternative north-south road to relieve traffic congestion.
“The development of the West Side is about balance,” said Tina Dolen, executive director of the Aquidneck Island Planning Commission, which organized the trip. Thanks to years of preparation and the continuing partnership between local, state and federal officials, she said, “We can come away with an award-winning design for the West Side.”
Dolen’s agency has long been preparing for the disposal of the Navy properties. One of its major tasks was creating a master plan for the area, which was completed about three years ago. Now all of that planning is getting closer to reality. Within the next 60 days, Dolen said, the Navy will publish formal notice in the Federal Register of its intent to dispose of about 375 of the 1,397 acres it owns on Aquidneck Island.
The move will kick off a process that could take two to three years to complete, said Dolen, and which will result in land being conveyed for free or at bargain prices for public projects such as parks and utilities or at market rates to developers. The Navy must complete environmental cleanups of some sites.
One of the best situated properties is the former Naval Hospital on 10 waterfront acres in Newport just north of the Pell Bridge. The first stop on yesterday’s tour, it includes a stone pier and three acres underwater around it. Planners see the potential for a marina and water taxi service. The property also includes several buildings, including the main hospital, a 150,000-square-foot, H-shaped brick building.
The state Historical Preservation and Heritage Commission has tentatively concluded that the turn-of-the-century main hospital and other buildings must be saved, and that “really provides a quite a challenge and adds cost” to the mixed-use development preferred by the city, said Paige Bronk, Newport’s planning director. The city has indicated that it would like to acquire the hospital property to guide its redevelopment, just as it did when it transformed former Navy property into the Community College of Rhode Island campus and the future headquarters of BankNewport.
The site of the demolished Navy Lodge, at West Main Road and Coddington Highway in Middletown, fits nicely in a row with a ball field, library and elementary school, and could benefit the town, said Planner Ron Wolanski, although no specific proposals have been made.
On Burma Road, Dolen noted that the Navy wants to dispose of the highway. The master plan envisions it becoming Shoreline Drive, a scenic highway that could serve as an alternative to heavily traveled West Main Road. Plans also call for a bike path to run along it and the water.
Wolanski said Middletown is enthusiastic about a parcel near Greene Lane, which could provide the only access to the water in town. Plans call for enlisting the state’s support to turn it into a park with a restored Midway fishing pier.
The largest tracts of Navy land to be disposed are unused underground fuel tank farms, which encompass about 275 acres on the land side of Burma Road. Their hilltops are being eyed as possible windmill sites. Another site could allow for an expansion of the Melville marine industry district, which Portsmouth Planner Robert Gilstein said “is bursting at the seams.”
The Navy’s Cornelia Mueller said the properties are already being cleaned up. But officials said the underground tanks, some of which have collapsed because they are too difficult to remove, could present obstacles to redevelopment.
.
