December 9, 2014 — A development group including athletic shoe tycoon Jim Davis has broken ground on a waterfront hotel in Gloucester, Mass. The project has been the focus of an acrimonious debate between residents who want to expand the city's tourism sector and others who want to preserve its fishing and seafood industry.
The group led by developer Sheree Zizik–and including Mr. Davis, the chairman of Boston-based New Balance Athletic Shoe Inc.–has been planning the 96-room Beauport Hotel Gloucester for more than six years. The project, to be built on the site of a historic Birds Eye food factory, is valued at more than $25 million and has support from the mayor and City Council, which believe Gloucester's first full-service hotel is important for job creation and economic development.
"I hope to make it a destination for a lot of visitors," Ms. Zizik said, who owns a restaurant and catering hall in Gloucester.
But other Gloucester residents fought to block the hotel, arguing that the city's waterfront should be preserved for seafood processing and other industrial uses. Opponents have said that unless the city protects Gloucester's working waterfront, factories and the hundreds of people that they employ will be driven out by developers of condominiums, hotels and shopping malls.
Opponents also want to preserve the city's gritty ambience, made popular by the book and movie "The Perfect Storm." Gloucester was the home port of the doomed boat in the true story, the Andrea Gale.
The battle over development has torn the community apart, said Valerie Nelson, a former City Council member who opposes the hotel and has lived in the area for about 30 years.
The fight in this historic Cape Ann city about 30 miles northeast of Boston resembles similar battles that have erupted in communities throughout the country over the use of waterfront real estate. Increasingly, traditional industrial users of waterfront property are being displaced by developers who are willing to pay up for prime real estate.
"In the last 20 years, waterfronts have become the hot places to develop in cities," said Tom Murphy, a former mayor of Pittsburgh who is now a senior fellow at the Urban Land Institute.
Read the full story at the Wall Street Journal