Treasure Cove Marina offers to manage downtown docks in revenue-share deal with town

The developers of the downtown aquarium, Hyatt Place hotel and Treasure Cove Marina would like to take over operation of the Riverhead Town’s Peconic River docks.

Bryan DeLuca, executive director of the parent company that operates all three businesses, and Joe Petrocelli, an owner of the company, pitched the idea to the Riverhead Town Board at Thursday morning’s work session.

They propose to manage the town’s dockage and enter into a revenue-sharing agreement with the town. Treasure Cove would market and rent the 50 existing town slips along the riverfront as transient dockage. Treasure Cove already offers transient dockage at its marina, which is adjacent to the downtown waterfront. There is a demand for more transient slips, DeLuca told board members.

The company is offering the town 20 percent of all fees it collects for use of the town docks. Overnight fees would be $2.50 per foot. That’s cheaper than the going rate of $3 per foot at nearby marinas, DeLuca said.

Day-trippers would pay $40 to tie up for the day. Riverhead Town residents would be charged the same $25 fee that the town currently imposes for use of the slips, which come with electric and water hookups.

DeLuca told board members the town’s docks are underutilized. He said he understands the town sees revenue of about $6,500 a year. Greenport, in contrast, earns $30,000 per month on dock fees, he said.

Treasure Cove would market the transient docks and manage them, providing boaters with the assistance of a dockmaster and dock attendants, plus such on-site amenities as bathrooms and showers. The marina also has a night watchman and a mechanic on site. Treasure Cove has a VHF channel for boaters seeking assistance with tide information and dockage availability. They also offer kayak, canoe, bicycle, water bike and electric water board rentals.

The town recreation department currently manages the docks. Boaters arriving at the downtown waterfront must go to the recreation department office at Stotzky Park in order to pay the dockage fee. As a result, the docks are not well-used and when they are used, they are often not paid for, according to board members. They said they were not sure what kind of revenues the dock rentals bring in annually.

Recreation superintendent Ray Coyne could not be reached for comment.

“I love it,” Supervisor Sean Walter said of the Treasure Cove proposal. “I’d like to see us move forward.”

Walter said the town slips are largely unused except during three downtown events: the Country Fair, the Blues Festival and Fourth of July fireworks. The docks could be a real asset to downtown business and revitalization, if properly marketed and managed, Walter said.

People would still be able to use the docks for those events, Walter said, but they’d have to pay Treasure Cove instead of the town, and Riverhead residents would still be paying the same rate they pay now.

Councilman James Wooten said after the meeting he’d like more information before making a decision on whether to enter into an agreement giving control over the docks to Treasure Cove.

“The town hasn’t been diligent enough to really make the most of its waterfront,” Wooten said. Could we do this better on our own? I want to make sure it’s something they can do better than we can. Right now I don’t have an opinion one way or the other.”

Councilman John Dunleavy and Councilwoman Jodi Giglio both expressed support of the plan at the board meeting.

“This makes a whole lot of sense,” Dunleavy said.

“Any time we can get the private sector to do a government function, that’s a good thing as far as I’m concerned,” Giglio said.

It was not immediately clear when the board would vote on authorizing the deal.

Photo captions:

(Top) The Peconic Riverfront dock Thursday afternoon. (Middle) Treasure Cove Marina Thursday afternoon. RiverheadLOCAL photos by Peter Blasl. (Bottom) The Peconic Riverfront dock during the Riverhead Blues Festival in July 2010. RiverheadLOCAL file photo by Peter Blasl.

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