It’s a long haul by boat, about 25 miles all told, up the Chester River from the Chesapeake Bay to historic Chestertown, the Kent County seat. And that’s a little too far for your average maritime sojourner to drop in for a quick bite at the riverside Fish Whistle restaurant and do some shopping on High Street before heading back downriver to open waters.
A while back, some High Street retailers, restaurateurs, and bar owners a few blocks to the northwest of the marina noticed their bottom lines dropping as fewer and fewer pleasure boaters elected to make the trek. Part of the problem was that the town’s one remaining marina was in terrible shape.
“It was in a pretty advanced state of disrepair,” recalls Chestertown Mayor and long-time resident Chris Cerino. “Maintenance had been deferred for about 25 years. It needed a ton of TLC, and it got to the point where we were using docks that weren’t all that safe anymore.
“As a result, a lot of store and restaurant owners said they really noticed the change,” he adds. “It used to mean 60,000 to 70,000 dollars a year (more) for some business owners. But now those people weren’t coming up the river anymore. They were seeing serious drops in revenue.”
Michelle Timmons has owned Houston’s Dockside Emporium, a specialty store three blocks from the Marina on High Street, for 29 years. She has felt the economic impact that the mayor describes.
It was in a pretty advanced state of disrepair. Maintenance had been deferred for about 25 years. It needed a ton of TLC, and it got to the point where we were using docks that weren’t all that safe anymore.
Chris Cerino, Chestertown Mayor
“Chestertown is such a pretty place to visit by water, but when people come here now, there’s not really a good place for them to dock,” Timmons explains.
In 2010, the situation got worse—so much worse that it woke up the community. That one remaining—albeit badly neglected—marina was sold to a developer intent on replacing it with riverside condos.
This meant that Chestertown, whose identity as a river town goes all the way back to 1706, when it was designated as one of the Maryland Colony’s six Royal Ports of entry, was about to lose its last public access to the river for which the town was named.
Fortunately, the private developer’s condo plan was shot down by the town’s planning board. That’s when the mayor and town council took a big leap of faith and voted to purchase the decaying marina in order to save the Chestertown’s last strip of waterfront.They embarked on what is probably the town’s largest capital initiative ever—as much as $7 million—to dramatically improve the derelict facility.
Meanwhile, next door at Washington College, an ambitious $20 million initiative was gaining steam to drastically revitalize the college’s under-utilized, approximately half-mile-long, 15-acre riverside portion of its large campus. The two parallel and nearly adjacent projects have since become inextricably linked.
Washington College President Kurt Landgraf says he is as deeply committed to the town’s initiative as he is to the college’s ambitious program.
“I don’t think we could have a better cooperative relationship with the town,” Landgraf explains. “For people who come in on Route 213, the first view they have of the college is when they cross over the bridge into Chestertown, and they also see that (new) waterfront. The more we can do as a college to support the appropriate growth of Chestertown, the better off we all are.”
For the town’s part, purchasing the marina in 2012 was, in many ways, the easy part. Next came the more difficult challenge of finding the substantial funding needed to give the marina a dramatic rebuild and expansion following the Waterfront Master Plan the town adopted in 2014.
Cerino concedes that initially there was opposition to the town taking on such an immense capital project.
“People would ask why the town was getting into the marina business,” he explains. “And that’s a totally legitimate question. This has turned out to be a very expensive project and a somewhat risky one. And the town didn’t have the money to do it at the time.”
But Cerino, who was elected mayor in 2014 and is now in his second term, says that a consensus began to emerge when people grasped the likely alternative. “Chestertown has been a port of entry since 1706,” says Cerino, who is also vice president of the Chestertown-based nonprofit Sultana Education Foundation. “It’s part of our identity and culture. We’re a water town. But if we no longer have access to the water, then who are we?”
The town has secured funding from an array of sources. Chestertown received a $500,000 bond bill from the state, along with $1.1 million from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources for dredging and related improvements. The Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development provided more than $1 million in grants to revitalize the nearby downtown area. Additional grants have come from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Maryland Heritage Area Authority.
Another $850,000 has been raised by a group of private donors led by Larry Culp, Jr., a Washington College graduate and former Fortune 500 company CEO, and his wife Wendy Culp. He has done a lot more than just raise money. He purchased some key downtown commercial properties on High Street. More importantly, he has strengthened the partnership between the college and town through his position as chair of the college’s board of visitors and governors.
From the outset, Culp envisioned the waterfront renewal—both by the college and the town—as an incredible opportunity to “reinvigorate, and even redefine Chestertown.
“Whether it’s a prospective family looking at Washington College or a student in residence over the course of four years, their views and their experiences are going to be a function of how interesting and attractive and safe Chestertown is,” he says. “By the same token, many of the residents in Chestertown realize they benefit from living in a college town. So, for me, there is just a natural dynamic at play. The college should be interested in the town, and the town should be interested in the college.”
Cerino obviously feels a strong sense of pride and accomplishment as he takes a visitor on a tour of the site at the foot of Cannon Street. The marina facility now includes three new piers that extend 70 feet farther into the channel than the previous docks. The longest of the three is approximately 250 feet, while the other two are about 150 feet in length. There are approximately 70 boat slips.
“No doubt we would have lost all this,” Cerino says as he points out an adjacent waterfront property between the marina and the college campus. “There used to be another marina right over there. It was bought by a developer who demolished the marina store and put those condos up. I’m sure the same thing would have eventually happened here.”
In future years, the new marina, which includes a store offering basic supplies and amenities for boaters, showers, and laundry facilities, and a small visitor center, combined with related improvements to the waterfront are expected to provide an environmentally clean economic engine for both Chestertown and surrounding Kent County. Town and county officials project that the regional economic impact could be as much as $2.2 million annually, which marks a nearly eight percent increase in Chestertown’s estimated $25.6 million tourism economy.
Matt Weir and his father, Tony, are co-owners of the Fish Whistle Restaurant. The popular down-home, American-style eatery is a local institution. It is situated on the riverfront at the marina on a separate piece of property and is the town’s only waterfront restaurant. Matt says he’s pleased that the re-grading of the marina’s segment of the riverfront will alleviate the flooding that occasionally makes his parking lot inaccessible. In early 2016, Weir told the town council he plans to spend about $500,000 expanding his dining deck and renovating the interior.
“We believe the new marina will be an economic driver for every business in our community, including the Fish Whistle,” Weir says.
Just down river and past the condos, Cerino pointed out. Washington College’s riverfront renaissance is well underway on a 15-acre tract that was once the site of a petroleum transfer station and an agrochemical company that recently underwent a $1.5 million-plus brownfields remediation.
Now it is home to the recently completed $5 million Hodson Boathouse. In addition to workout equipment and locker rooms, the new boathouse features a state-of-the-art tank room with a 16-station, 25-by-54-foot rowing tank, where the college’s rowing team can practice even when the weather is frigid and the river is iced over.
Also nearby is the former Sgt. John H. Newan Maryland National Guard Armory, which was declared surplus by the state some years ago and claimed by Chestertown, along with the 3.5 acres on which it stands. The college acquired the long-vacant historic 1931 structure from the city in 2012 as part of an agreement that included a donation of $200,000 to the town to create a trail that will provide public access to the college campus’s riverfront. This “rail trail” will connect the school to the marina and High Street via the town’s Wilmer Park, which adjoins the campus. The college has had discussions with several interested parties about eventually converting the approximately 20,700-square-foot armory building into a bed and breakfast.
But the campus’s new centerpiece and crown jewel will be the Semans-Griswold Environmental Hall, which shares a five-acre parcel with the new boathouse. Scheduled for completion in August of next year, the 12,000-square-foot, $10.5 million hall will provide classroom and lab facilities for the college’s environmental programs and its Center for Environment & Society. It is also being designed as a regional hub for hands-on research on the Chesapeake Bay, and a center for “thought leadership” concentrating on the environment. The center will also be open to the public.
“This is going to be a statement building for Washington College,” says John L. Seidel, an associate professor of anthropology and environmental studies and director of the college’s Center for Environment & Society. “It’s going to house some of our environmental programs, so we wanted it to be as green as we could make it. It will be 105 percent energy efficient, using solar and geothermal energy, so it will be returning energy to the grid.”
Looking ahead, Larry Culp believes it’s crucial that the college and town continue to “find creative ways to do things together that we might not be able to do separately. And I think the waterfront is a great example of what Mayor Cerino has been able to lead from the town’s perspective in that regard. That’s why he’s been such a wonderful partner for the college.”
