Tuesday, February 20, 2001

Rocky Point: Housing or open space?
By Michael Pare, Managing Editor

Entrance to Rocky Point with a locked gate in sight.

Sen. William A. Walaska, a Warwick Democrat, is calling on the state and federal government to find the money necessary to purchase the former Rocky Point Amusement Park and preserve its 123 acres and one mile of shoreline as open space.

U.S. Bankruptcy Court, which controls the property, has set the asking price at nearly $10 million. Proceeds from any sale of the park would be divided among its creditors.

Rocky Point saw its famous Palladium and the Shore Dining Hall close in 1996. Its midway - with a haunted house, flume and various other rides gave way to the occasional flea market. The sweet smells of popcorn, cotton candy and fried doughboys were lost forever.

Rocky Point represents one of the largest contiguous parcels of land to become available in 25 years. Located on Warwick Neck, it offers spectacular views of Narragansett Bay.

The property is primarily zoned residential, meaning that developers could use it for single-family, condominium, and assisted living development.

Walaska's fear is that if the city, state, and federal government do not come up with the money to purchase the land, a developer will - and that, he said, would not be good economic development. He has introduced a formal resolution at the General Assembly calling on the governor and the federal government to purchase the park. Walaska introduced a similar resolution last year, which received the support of the Senate. Keeping the issue alive, he said, is important.

Walaska is confident that significant federal funding may exist for such a purchase and believes that by increasing the pressure to find it - it may be more likely to happen.

"I don't want to wake up one morning to find bulldozers clearing the land for a 700-home development knowing that we didn't try as best we could to find a way to preserve this parcel," he said. "If nothing else, this resolution should revive or energize discussion about protecting this land for use as a park by all Rhode Islanders. It is a treasure we should try to protect."

Massive development there, he said, could be costly to the city.

"If it were to be developed - with hundreds of housing lots or 400 to 500 condominiums - it would cost the city more than we would get in tax revenues," he said.

The drain on police, fire, and sanitation would be dramatic, said Walaska. And the impact on the city's school system would be worse, he said.

"Warwick Neck School, which is right next door, is already at capacity," he said. "We would literally have to build a new school."

Walaska sits on the board of the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation. Open space, he said, makes more financial sense than an influx of houses or condominiums.

"In terms of economics, it's another way to make our state attractive to people who want to come here," he said.

Warwick City Councilman Carlo E. Pisaturo, Jr., who worked at Rocky Point as a teenager, represents the district that is home to the former amusement park. Ideally, Pisaturo said, he would like to see the land preserved as open space.

Most important, he said, is that the public regain access to the waterfront.

"No matter what happens at Rocky Point - whether it is developed or it becomes a state park - we have to have public access to the waterfront," he said. "That would make me happy."

Pisaturo said the price tag placed on the land by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court has been a deterrent for years.

"It is not an easy property to develop," he said. "There is a lot of asphalt. There are wetlands. A lot of money would have to go into it."

Ironically, the involvement of a developer could make the property - or at least a portion of it -- more affordable to the town. If a developer, for example, were to purchase the property and then seek a zoning variance because of the density of a condominium project, the city could then request open space in return.

In the summer of 1999, the Providence Business News reported that at least half a dozen developers - several from Massachusetts - were interested in the property. None of those potential deals, however, came to fruition.

Warwick Mayor Scott Avedisian also supports the idea of preserving the land as open space. Whoever takes ownership, he said, will need to invest.

"If you walked through there right now, you would be depressed," said Avedisian. "It looks like a ghost-town. The kids have been in there. I don't think there is a window left in the place. In order to create a park-like atmosphere, we would have to do a lot of remediation of asphalt."

The steep price tag on the property does present a silver lining of sorts in the eyes of the mayor. And there are other factors in the city's favor, he said.

"There won't be any fly-by-night operation looking at it," he said. "And we have made it clear all along that if a developer were to go in there, one of the major conditions would be that the land by the shore would be deeded to the town. We would have a major say in any zoning or planning approvals."

Walaska lives along Warwick Neck. Last Sunday he walked the shoreline and fed the ducks. A couple struck up a conversation with him. They had heard that one of the local politicians was pushing for the park to be preserved as open space. Walaska just smiled and introduced himself.

Walaska said he has received more phone calls on the issue than on any other since he entered politics. He said he is convinced the money is out there - somewhere.

Walaska knows it is a game of chance. But he also knows people win in games of chance. They don't win all of the time -- not even most of the time. But sometimes they win. And to Walaska, this prize is bigger than a giant stuffed bear.

Published 02/19/2001