BELFAST, Maine — The city has won a $200,000 Community Development Block Grant that will be matched by at least that much investment by the Front Street Shipyard.
The money will go toward improving the site of the former Belfast Boatyard, which the Shipyard purchased last month. For its part, Front Street Shipyard must create 10 full-time equivalent jobs, with at least half of those going to people of low and moderate income, over the next two years.
The city applied for the CDBG funding just last month, Thomas Kittredge, Belfast’s economic development director, said Friday. The public-private cooperative nature of the venture is unusual, he said, but it will help Front Street Shipyard remain competitive in servicing the high-end yachts that already make up most of the company’s business.
With the funding, the shipyard will purchase a crane that can lift up to 30 tons. The money also will cover the cost of installing a concrete pad to support the crane and improve the bulkhead that lines the shore of the former boatyard.
Expanding to the former boatyard site gives the shipyard access to deeper water, Service Manager Justin Wiegleb explained.
Currently, larger vessels must be brought to docks at or near high tide. When masts of the large yachts are “unstepped,” or removed and laid flat on the ground, the vessels are brought into the dock bow first or stern first, and the crane must reach out across part of the length of the boat.
Under the new system, vessels will dock alongside the bulkhead, and the new crane will not have to reach as far. The farther it reaches, the less weight-bearing capacity the crane has, Wiegleb said.
“We’ll be able to unstep masts right there,” he said.
The grant also will help the shipyard build a marine heated-spray paint booth that will enable it to perform consistently high-quality paint work.
“This grant is really going to help the yard,” Wiegleb said.
Currently, the shipyard employs about 90. Kittredge said that in Waldo County, to fall into the moderate- and low-income category, the household income for a family of four would need to be $43,900 or lower. The yard must hire five people who meet the moderate- to low-income guidelines to satisfy the grant requirements.
Kittredge said the improvements that will be made at the shipyard will mean more tax value for the city and will boost the waterfront and harbor. The shipyard brings wealthy yacht owners or their vessel’s captain and crews to Belfast, where they spend money both at the shipyard and around town.
The jobs provided by the shipyard, which opened in Belfast a little over a year ago, also provide economic health, Kittredge said.
“We look at the big picture,” he said, in applying for such grants.
In a joint statement from the shipyard and the city, Front Street Shipyard’s president JB Turner said: “Our continued close working relationship with the city has been one of the keys to our success. The city’s involvement and help throughout our rapid growth has been unprecedented in my career. Time and time again, when called upon for quick, decisive action, Belfast in total has come to our aid.”
Belfast Mayor Walter Ash said in the statement that the city “is very happy to have secured this important grant and to see Front Street Shipyard be able to continue to add more employees, and we are very excited about the shipyard’s future growth prospects.”
Belfast is one small town that seems to be on the move in the right direction,mixing tourism with working class jobs.
waste of money.
Wow, what an insightful comment. Would you care to explain? Because in my eyes this looks to actually be a very good use of federal money, which is going to create real jobs. While I am usually leery of using federal money to help private enterprise, this is obviously a win for the community at large. When fed. money is spent on useless projects with no long term viability, I have a problem. When the money is for expansion of a business which has proven to be a great asset to the community, it just makes sense. I know several people who work there and all say it is a good place to work and they are making as much or more money than they were before. As we all know, this is rare in today’s economy. It has been a long time coming but now that Front St. Shipyard is here I am glad to see it is working even better than anyone could have imagined. I thought they would do well and it would take several years to get a good customer base, but in the last year or so they have earned more business than they know what to do with. We need more businesses with the kind of focus and tailored business plan like they have. They understood that the best market is those with the most money. Instead of making a thousand or two on each pleasure craft they could fix, they set their sights onto the big sailboats and yachts which would net them thousands of dollars or more per customer.
I’m all for the shipyard and I wish them much success. Not happy about them taking public funding.
GOOD jobs, not the PROMISE of them. Providing a real service involving craftsmanship, value and bringing hard cash into Belfast. THAT is what this type of federal cash should be used for. Belfast deserves kudos for promoting it and the owners & workers at Front Street deserve the support because they are using it to build a better Maine.