The working waterfront, an essential public space

One of the better second-hand anecdotes we heard about Boca Grande this year was of a cranky house guest who was unsatisfied at the number of luxury boutiques in Boca Grande, having experienced Palm Beach. She could not fathom that there were not more luxury goods shops here. Where was the Worth Avenue? After telling a shopkeeper of her boredom, the owner sent her down, in desperation, to Whidden’s Marina and the Gasparilla Island Maritime Museum, thinking it might, as the expression goes, mess with her world. 

She came back to the shop, thoroughly entertained, and with a very different, and enthusiastic understanding of Boca Grande.

The story, exaggerated or not, is a useful example this week, as we learn that the year of rumors have come true. Whidden’s Marina is officially on the market, for $17.5 million. There is no need here to run through the history of the marina, which is one of the few marinas and fish houses listed individually on the National Register of Historic Places. In addition, Eldred’s, so important as a gateway to Gasparilla Island, the bridgeless islands and local waterways, is still on the market for somewhere around $40 million.

While the newfangled megayacht marina business is booming at luxury ports around the world, the old fashioned marina business can be tough. You have declining fisheries, umpteen regulations on waterways and docks and hurricanes here that seem to bring regular trouble and cost.

All the aspects of the marine industry are needed, and on Gasparilla Island, each marina brings a different aspect of boating. Slips and operations at The Pink public docks, Uncle Henry’s, Boca Grande Marina, The Innlet and Inn Marina each provide access to the water and options, whether dropping off for the day or staying overnight.

Whidden’s is a different type of marina water access, as it had, and has, a role in actual fisheries. It also functions as a general store; these types of dock-based stores were across Florida, but have disappeared.

What to do to keep Whidden’s?

Boca Grande has a peculiar habit of looking inward for cash injections when it needs things. That is all well and good, but we are now at a time when island institutions are quite busy with other projects, and the generosity of Boca Grande Disaster Fund donors have been, as they used to say, prevailed upon quite a lot.

State and federal officials care what happens here. In a discussion about Placida last year, we mentioned the Stan Mayfield Working Waterfront grants from Florida. They are named after the late state Rep. Stan Mayfield of Vero Beach, who died at age 52.

The state grants are not for marinas for sport fishing, but for the acquisition of land “directly used for the purposes of the commercial harvest of marine organisms or saltwater products by state-licensed commercial fishermen, aquaculturists, or business entities, including piers, wharves, docks, or other facilities operated to provide waterfront access to licensed commercial fishermen, aquaculturists, or business entities. The funds may also be used for the acquisition of a parcel(s) of land used for exhibitions, demonstrations, educational venues, civic events, and other purposes that promote and educate the public about economic, cultural, and historic heritage of Florida’s traditional working waterfronts, including the marketing of the seafood and aquaculture industries.”

State and federal grants are fickle, and their timing is not easy to reconcile with a property on the market now. The money may not be there immediately, but there is money for projects like Whidden’s in many places.

In late 2009, the City of Sebastian received a grant of $3.1 million for the purchase of property and adjacent land and piers. This was part of a broader initiative to revive a working waterfront with Fisherman’s Landing Inc., a non-profit.

In 2010, Brevard County purchased Blue Crab Cove (formerly Griffis Landing) for $2.825 million. The Stan Mayfield Working Waterfront Grant Program contributed $1.84 million towards this purchase, with funding from the Florida Inland Navigation District and the Merritt Island Redevelopment Agency. This acquisition aimed to serve the local crabbing and fishing industry, while preventing the construction of condos.

We do not always have to go it alone. Here there is even a local Navigation District to call on, in Venice. 

How pitiful we all are, if we, as a state and region, cannot figure out a way to make profitable the bringing in of seafood from our newly renamed Gulf, instead of Thailand. Who here has not brought their bored children or grandchildren by Whidden’s, to give them a taste of what life was like before all things were plastic. Don’t we all need to see what life was like before all of our buildings, food and boats all came out of factories?

Whidden’s is protected, building wise, as it is in Lee County’s Boca Grande Historic District. A photo of the weatherbeaten marina even appears on the county website description of the historic district. But most of the charm is not just in passing it by in a boat, but in its daily use. To paint a dire picture, it would be a shame if it were just a place where someone came for two months a year, as a place to park their Hinkley there, and had it closed off the rest of the time.

Is a private dock really its highest and best use? It would be sad for everyone here on the island to have little paintings and pictures of what Whidden’s was, without having an actual enterprise there serving the public. Additionally, it is one of the remaining commercial properties on the island, and those areas are finite, according to the Gasparilla Island Conservation District Act.

What if Whidden’s were not only the stopping place for shrimp boats, but also had a life as a place of education, for both adults and youth? What if it were a hub again for small-scale commercial fishing? There is a premium on good food, sustainably raised. Everyone can agree on that.

These are just ideas.

Many entities on this island are now highly reactive, dealing with the day-to-day and cost from hurricanes. That is one reality. But in the context of dealing with the practical issues of the day, it is helpful to step back for an hour or so, and imagine what can be. That provides enthusiasm for the daily drudgery ahead, as well as an idea of a way forward.

Garland Pollard is editor of the Boca Beacon. Email letters and comments to editor@bocabeacon.com.