While Port Royal dispute simmers, Safe Harbor Marinas proposes dock expansion in Beaufort
While Safe Harbor Marinas is navigating choppy waters this week with the town of Port Royal, Tuesday night at the Beaufort City Council meeting more whitecaps stirred as plans were unveiled to expand the footprint and investment at the marina operator’s neighboring Bay Street facility.
While the two projects in Beaufort and Port Royal are largely independent operations, Beaufort residents are seeing warning signs from their southern neighbors for a need to proceed with caution.
At the council meeting it was revealed that Safe Harbor Marinas is proposing a $27 million project at the Beaufort Marina that would double the dock’s capacity. The tiny marina is situated in the Beaufort River off Waterfront Park. Safe Harbor is proposing to replace the aging docks with a much larger floating dock system. The capacity for the number of boats would increase from 76 to 146. Linear dock footage would increase from 2880 to 4263 feet. It says the dock arrangement would be better lined up with the prevailing tides, making it safer, too.
David Rogers, Safe Harbor’s regional vice president, says the upgrade is needed because the docks are old. The improvement would be attractive to the 48,000 Safe Harbor members who use Safe Harbor facilities along the East Coast, as well as local residents who use the docks, he said. Those members, he said, are encouraged to visit the city’s restaurants and shops and explore its history when the dock at the marina.
“At some point that infrastructure is going to be obsolete and that can affect members’ desire to come to a property,” said Rogers.
The company already has invested $840,000 in the existing facilities. The proposed expansion would total $27 million. The company wants to fix it up so it isn’t putting money into an aging facility, he said.
Beaufort leaders and residents expressed concerns
But some Beaufort residents did not buy the pitch.
Safe Harbor last updated the city on the proposed expansion plans in August 2022. It received a chilly reception at that time and the reaction was not much different Tuesday.
“This time, I can’t say no,” Councilman Neil Lipsitz said of Safe Harbor proposal. “I say hell no.”
Lipsitz and others say the marina expansion would mar the exceptional views of the Beaufort River from Bay Street an Waterfront Park.
A price tag can’t be placed on those views, said Lipsitz, adding that “I still want that vista to be there” after he dies.
Bay Street resident Wallace Scarborough, who can see dolphins feeding in the shallows from his property, recently counted the number of people who stopped in front of his home during one day to take photographs of the Beaufort River. That number, he said, was 200, and most of those people snapped photos looking south toward Port Royal, not the other direction toward the boats and the marina. “Because it’s in the most beautiful vista in the world!” Scarborough said. “Why do you think they made movies here?
Safe Harbor has been a good partner, Councilman Josh Scallate said, and he appreciates the $840,000 investment. But Scallate chided the large marina operator for the way in which it has treated Beaufort’s neighbor to the south, the town of Port Royal.
“If Safe Harbor is picking a fight with Port Royal, they are picking a fight with the city of Beaufort as well,” said Scallate. Port Royal and Safe Harbor have clashed over the company’s waterfront marina-centered development plans in that community. Just last week, the town sued Safe Harbor with the complaint alleging the company is illegally building large docks at the site for use at other locations.
Scallate urged the company improve its relationship with Port Royal and build its planned 300-slip marina. Then, he added, it can start working on the state-of-the-art facility in Beaufort — in the existing footprint of the Beaufort Marina.
Scallate said he didn’t see much economic advantage to the city from the marina expansion in Beaufort. Safe Harbor, he said, will make more money, but “at what cost” to the city’s natural, cultural and historic resources. “This is primarily a benefit for transients that are here 15 nights or less,” Scallate said.
Beaufort’s quality of life is linked to the water and the city would not be what it is without it’s views of the river or its live oak canopies, Mayor Phil Cromer said. The proposal, he said, would change the complexion of what the city looks like.,
“If you could do it within the existing footprint that would be great,” Cromer said.
Safe Harbor’s website claims it “owns and operates the world’s largest boating network” of 139 marinas worldwide. It began leasing the marina from the city in 2019. At the time, the city had a backlog of deferred maintenance, and Safe Harbor has deep pockets.
Safe Harbor’s Rogers says the company brings value in that it has the money to build facilities for annual slips used by locals and slips for transient boaters.
“What we’re doing here is we’re looking toward growth in the area,” Rodgers said.
Peter Clark, Safe Harbor’s chief development officer, told the Beaufort Gazette and Island Packet after the meeting that the company would take the feedback from residents and “continue to work with the city” on its investment plans for the marina.
“We’re not discouraged,” Clark said.
This story was originally published March 27, 2024 at 10:36 AM.
