By Scott Sullivan
Editor
A Wicks Park Bar & Grill request to expand operations behind its downtown Saugatuck restaurant into a speakeasy with backyard patio ran into neighbor objections during a Saugatuck City Planning Commission public hearing Feb. 17.
Christine Murphy Pierce wants to convert a small residence at 121 Mary St. in back of her 449 Water St. restaurant, both on the same piece of property, into what she described as a 20- to 25-seat speakeasy for private parties with available outdoor seating. Food would be delivered from Wicks Park kitchen via a breezeway between the buildings.
“It will me more quiet and intimate than Wicks,” she said.
“Right now the house,” which Pierce said she uses as an Air B&B rental, “and alley are disgusting. Our goal is to clean them up, generate more revenue from our property and improve downtown in the process,” Murphy said.
“This,” said Catherine Simon, a former mayor whose Maplewood Hotel abuts Pierce’s parcel on the east side, “would have a very negative impact on my business, the Ivy Inn, Marywood Manor (now Summer Fun Cottages), Wickwood, the Inn of Saugatuck and even Judson Heath” (all nearby lodging businesses).
“How does adding one business balance against damaging multiple others?” Simon asked.
The commission tabled acting on Pierce’s special land-use and preliminary site plan requests that night, seeking more information from the applicant plus a Saugatuck Township Fire District assessment regarding emergency access there.
“It’s a case one person’s rights coming up against others’,” commission chair Dan Fox said.
Whereas Wicks Park caters to larger crowds and hosts live bands, Pierce said what she calls The Cottage at Wicks Park would serve smaller, by-reservation parties with entertainment by no more than one musician.
The parcel lies in the C-2 Commercial Water Street East District, designed per city code “to preserve the residential flavor of the area while promoting commercial land use and development.
“The district is designed for an intermediate intensity and density of structures and land use. Commercial development is desired in this district,” the code goes on.
City planning and zoning director Cindy Osman said the proposal appears to comport with site zoning but “the commission may wish to discuss how it is or is not compatible with the uses in the vicinity and on adjacent property keeping in mind that they may be in a different zone district.
Simon and Inn of Saugatuck owner Jane Verplank, also a former mayor, pressed that further.
“While I applaud all efforts to improve the downtown district,” Simon read from a Feb. 9 letter she sent the commission, “the request presents several compliance questions and a number of potential disruptions to the surrounding businesses.”
She cited inconsistencies between Wicks Park plans first submitted and seen by neighbors, later revised and presented to city staff and descriptions Pierce gave that night.
“You’re changing plans,” Simon said to one description from Pierce’s builder. “Isn’t that my back lot you are accessing?”
“I agree her alley and building are now disgusting. Whose fault is that?” Simon asked.
The proposals do not meet special land use standards in the district, she continued, including:
• There will be no impediments to development of adjoining properties,
• Is compatible with uses in the vicinity and on adjacent property,
• Avoids land-use conflicts through the appropriate location of compatible land uses,
• Protects land values,
• The district is designed for an intermediate intensity and density of structures and land use,
• Would protect landowners immediately adjacent, and
• In the location, size, intensity and site layout be such that operations will not be objectionable to nearby dwellings, by reason of noise, fumes, pollution or vibration.
“All of the above considerations directly impact the Maplewood Hotel, four other lodging establishments and surrounding residential properties,” Simon said.
Inn of Saugatuck owner Jane Verplank, another former mayor, also objected to the proposal.
“Christine has made a lot of promises,” Verplank said. “She has a very, very poor track record on noise. She moves bands inside but leaves windows open, and they play not until 11 p.m. but 12:30 a.m.
“Didn’t she see those four B&B’s that surround her?“ Verplank continued. “We sell sleep. My business has been here 43 years. We long preceded her business.
“This still needs Historic District Commission review and approval, plus fire district (Verplank is chair of its board) inspection. This is way too soon for the P.C. to weigh in on this,” Verplank said.
“Increased traffic, congestion and parking are already tough there,” said planner and city council liaison Russ Gardner. “The fire chief is concerned about getting crews access to the backyard patio.”
“The issue is safety on the overall site,” said Fox. “When an establishment is already crowded and noisy with drinking and dancing, those things can compound.
“Why the change in designs?” he asked Pierce. “They look pretty major between what we first had and now see today.”
“This seems to me,” said commissioner Rich Crawford, “like a classic health, safety and welfare issue.”
“The goal is to improve that area,” Pierce said.
I’ll be happy to meet with neighbors and the fire chief about this.
“Properties need to evolve,” she said.
The vote to table was unanimous. Stay tuned.