Assembling the pieces to remake Westerly, from The Day, 5/28/2006

As quoted From the Day article............... 5-28-2006

"The Westerly Land Trust was founded in 1987 with the purpose of preserving open space and the town's natural resources, and then it lay dormant, acquiring no property at all over the next 10 years."

"But in 1998 the land trust roared to life, resuscitated by a campaign to stop a housing development on the outskirts of the village of Avondale. The group raised $1.8 million, in donations and loans, and bought the 54-acre Avondale Farm. Then the acquisitions continued at a fast pace, with the trust buying hundreds of acres in separate parcels in the Pawcatuck River watershed, north of downtown, and 173 acres near the southerly town beaches, purchased in an unusual partnership with a real estate development company that is building a retirement community on a piece of the property. By the end of 2004, the land trust owned some 950 acres, about 5 percent of the land mass of the town. According to its tax returns for that year, the trust owed $4.3 million in notes and mortgages used for its purchases.

More recently, the land trust has turned its attention from preserving open space to what appears to be a major urban renewal project downtown, one it has yet to define. The trust changed its articles of incorporation to include "combating community deterioration and revitalizing blighted areas" in its mission statement, and since April 2005 has purchased five unrelated downtown properties, including a boat repair business, a parking lot, a 1911 landmark bank building, the shuttered United Theater and a contaminated gas station site.

The trust, overseen by a board of 17 directors and run entirely by volunteers, has set up two new committees, one to manage the acquisition of properties and another to maintain them. The trust says it will continue to pay taxes on them. "We've expanded our mission," said Harvey C. Perry II, a senior vice president of the Washington Trust Co., who has been president of the land trust since 1999. "For smart growth it makes sense to focus development activities where there is infrastructure ... It will take development pressures off other areas of Westerly."

Perry says there is no overall plan in place yet for downtown redevelopment, beyond a general goal to restore and reopen the 990-seat United Theater, a 1926 vaudeville house. He said that the land trust has a number of supporters who are lending money for the acquisition, repair and maintenance of the downtown properties, but he said he could not identify them.

However, associates of Charles M. Royce, the Greenwich investment manager and Westerly summer resident who is heading a $70 million rebuilding of the Ocean House in Watch Hill, acknowledged in interviews last week that the Royce Family Fund, a Connecticut-based charitable foundation, is helping finance the land trust's activities downtown.

Royce, who has spearheaded the restoration of nonprofit theaters in Stamford and Onteora, N.Y., said in a statement that he sees a revived United Theater and a restored Industrial Trust bank building as part of the development of downtown as a cultural and arts center. Properties that the land trust has purchased on the riverfront side of Main Street, with assistance from the Royce Family Fund, could eventually become part of a gateway to the downtown, Royce said in the statement. Royce has been buying commercial properties on Main Street, with his W.H. Properties LLC, for several years.

"I have long believed that the Main Street gateway to Westerly and its downtown presents an inferior introduction to the beauty and historic character of the town and its downtown area," Royce said in the statement issued in response to questions from The Day.

"It is intended in the next several months to engage town citizens and officials in discussions to identify the best use of the assembled properties to enhance this gateway and introduce the vitality of Westerly." Royce's interest in Main Street and detailed plans for a riverfront boardwalk, a hotel and new retail and residential development, have been rumored in town in recent years. His daughter and son-in-law already operate two restaurants downtown, Up River Café and Senor Flaco's.

However, Royce associates insisted in interviews last week that there are no specific plans yet for improvements to Main Street and that they would like to create a collaboration with town officials and other property owners before moving forward with any ideas for the riverfront.

"I think the goal, and we are very close at this point, is to be able to (acquire) the property and then shortly thereafter to sit down with all the private property owners along the river and create a vision of what we all think would work for Westerly," said Andy Griscom, a Westerly doctor who said he has been working with Royce as a friend and collaborator on the Main Street project. "One of my guiding principles is that all of the properties should be owned by individuals, Westerly people adding to the downtown. We would like locally owned businesses, one-off businesses, not chains. That is the ultimate goal. "There is a sense out there that there is some grand plan and development that one person is going to control more than they should. It is the antithesis to that." Most important, Griscom said, he would like to see Westerly reclaim its downtown waterfront. "I am not an urban planner or an architect, just a local citizen, but I have this sense of this beautiful river and how we don't really use it. We have our back side to the river instead of our front side. "I would love to be part of turning us around and honoring the river, using the river," he said. "My vision would be to have a boardwalk along the river, having people live above businesses, more people walking. We already have a supermarket downtown, a hardware store, the train station, all these amazing ingredients."

Together, Royce's LLC and the land trust have acquired a patchwork of properties along Main Street, from the Pawcatuck bridge at the northern end, to Beach Street at the south. Some owners of other Main Street properties say they are generally aware of the acquisitions but have not heard of any specific plans. David Rathbun of Stonington, who owns Elite Cleaners on Main Street, said he would not mind seeing his 1840s riverfront building reused in some way, if he can find a new place for the dry cleaning business. "I've known Chuck Royce for years, and he's not doing anything behind the scenes here," Rathbun said. "This is the best thing that's come along for downtown Westerly in years. He is such a generous man. He is accumulating things when they are available and when they are not overpriced. He has not hurt any businesses. He has not dislocated anyone."

Nicholas M. Castagna, a Westerly town councilor whose haircutting business is across Main Street from the riverfront properties, said he's heard rumors of Royce's involvement downtown.

"I am thrilled they've ventured into this," Castagna said. "He's a God send for Westerly. Does he have a grand plan? I assume he does. I don't want to be presumptuous, but I think it will be good for the town. "He seems to have taken a keen interest in the beauty of this area, and I applaud him."

One owner who hasn't heard about plans for Main Street is Salvatore Fortunato, who runs Sal's Small Engine Repair at 113 Main St. He said he wouldn't be interested in selling his property. "I'd say this is the best part of town, here on the river. Of course, there's Watch Hill, too," he said. "I'm not going anywhere."

Plans for the United Theater are also evolving, but work is under way to secure the building and begin renovations, Royce and his associates said last week. Temporary repairs have been made to stop leaks in the roof. Original seats and lighting fixtures have been removed and stored and asbestos in the concession area was abated.

A structural analysis is being done and architects for the restoration are being interviewed. The land trust bought the long-closed theater early this year for $130,000. "We don't have a fixed vision in terms of this project of whether there will be live theater as well as movies or just movies," said Nicholas C. Moore, general manager for W.H. Properties. "I think it was used very infrequently for live performances, and most of the people I've talked to with a history in Westerly only remember it as a movie house." Carlo Brogna, a neurologist who sold the building to the land trust, said he is glad to see the renovation go forward. He said he bought the theater with the idea of reopening it but didn't have the resources to carry out the project.

"I had been going back and forth with Mr. Royce over this for about a year," he said. "They are going to do a great job. This is going to be a great economic engine for all of the businesses downtown." At the Industrial Trust bank building on High Street, which was sold to the land trust for $600,000 last spring, by an artist who was living in it, minor interior and exterior renovations are under way. Moore said they hope to make it available for community events by fall. He said the building, with its distinctive granite facade, was purchased largely in the interest of preserving it as an architectural landmark downtown. "I think Mr. Royce and the land trust are committed to going ahead and making some sort of public use of the building," Moore said. "We know we want to use it for public purpose and public access, but we are not sure yet how to make that happen. We need to engage the other nonprofits and have a lot more dialogue."

Royce, who is president of The Royce Funds, a successful family of mutual funds that invests in small cap companies, first bought property in Westerly in 1989, a waterfront house in Weekapaug that he used as a summer residence. He first became involved in land conservation in town when the charitable Royce Family Fund bought a large piece of property, added conservation easements, and sold it as a single-family house lot.

The Royce Family Fund later helped finance the land trust's 1998 purchase of the Avondale Farm property, with a $471,000 mortgage. And Royce, according to one of his lawyers, put up money to help the land trust acquire what is now the John Champlin Glacier Park between Shore and Tom Harvey roads. The trust said it later raised money for the leveraged purchase through private fund raising, state grants, and money from the Nature Conservancy and the Bafflin, Champlin, Doris Duke and Forrest Lattner foundations.

The 173-acre site was purchased with the Newbury Development Co.(Winnapaug Cottages) of Des Moines, Iowa, which is building an assisted living community on 32 of the acres. "Things have become terribly, terribly expensive," said Perry, president of the land trust. "Our experience with conservation is that we can't do significant projects unless we develop partnerships."

As for the downtown initiative and future land conservation, Perry says the land trust has help from many people other than Royce. "We have a number of friends and resources who have developed confidence in our organization, who trust we are going do what we say we are going to do," he said. We are convinced there are enough people interested in what we are doing that we can pull it off." He said that the land trust has an "aggressive" board of directors and quality lenders. The land trust's directors include year-round and seasonal residents of the town, a professional planner, corporate consultants, a town retail store owner, an executive from Westerly Hospital and the town attorney. Perry would not discuss the trust's finances beyond the 990 tax returns it must file publicly. The last one available is for 2004. He says the trust has taken on substantial debt in acquisitions, including those downtown.

"The people who hold our debt have some shared interest in our goals, and they realize there will be some risks as well," he said. The land trust is a member of the national Land Trust Alliance and has adopted its Standards and Practices, guidelines for the responsible operation of such an agency. Last year Perry received the Peter Merritt Award for outstanding achievement in conservation by the Rhode Island Land Trust. The Westerly Land Trust will probably need to look at hiring a full-time staff soon, including an executive director. "We need someone to keep track of all these plates spinning in the air," he said. As plans move forward downtown, Perry said the land trust will welcome ideas from the public.

"We don't know what our long-term program will be," he said. "At the moment we are acquiring property and banking it. It's possible we might sell some in a restructuring. We might develop plans with other property owners. There could be a lot of different scenarios. "At some point we hope to develop a comprehensive development plan. And when we reach that point it's our plan to invite public input and then include those ideas in our thinking." "If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. We can always sell the properties to someone else."

Thinking about becoming part of a community that cares for the "arts," has spirit, preserves its land, near the seacoast? Buying, selling, renting or investing, call me today, your persoal concierge, Sandy Bliven, 401-286-2571.