Sail Newport Breaks Ground on New Education and Recreation Center at Fort Adams

NEWPORT, RI—Today, it's a swath of green grass at Fort Adams State Park in Newport near the dock office. Soon, the spot will be the location of Sail Newport's new education and recreation center—a state-of-the-art facility enabling the nonprofit to expand its marine education programming.

Among the local and state officials who came to celebrate at a groundbreaking ceremony on Monday was Former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee, accompanied by his daughter Louisa, who just competed in the Rio Olympics on the U.S. Sailing team.

After the ceremony, Chafee said the new building was important to keep world class sailing events coming to Newport, even though the city lost the America's Cup race in 1983.

"Ever since the Aussies took the cup in 1983," he said, "we have worked very hard to keep that economic engine of sailing pumping out the dollars."

Brad Martin, principal of the East Bay Met School in Newport, said the new building is going to improve sailing for the youngsters.

"We love Sail Newport at the Met School," Martin said. "Fifteen or 20 students a year get involved with the program" and learn to sail. "This kind of facility just makes it that much better."

"We've been hearing and hearing about it," said Connie Bischoff, a Newport summer resident. She dropped by the site because she's a longtime supporter of Sail Newport, and she wanted to see where the new building was going to go.

The new building is part of an ambitious $10 million Campaign for Blue Space, which also includes funds to nurture the organization's endowment and expand existing programs, executive director Brad Read said. It will stand two-and-a-half stories, with space for classrooms, showers and other amenities.

The new "Mid-Park Marine Education and Recreation Center" building will be LEED-compliant and feature about 50 solar panels, recycled materials on the inside and outside and even collect rainwater for boat washing, landscape irrigation and flushing the public toilets.

The project will help Sail Newport achieve its goal of building a sustainable headquarters and create programming to "inspire sailors to be ocean stewards," said Sail Newport Executive Director Brad Read in a news release. "It's important that we not only foster environmentally-friendly sailing events and green regattas, but that we also integrate the message of preservation and maintenance of our ocean and shoreline," he said.

Last week, Sail Newport announced it received a $1 million grant from 11th Hour Racing in support of the campaign. 11th Hour Racing is a Newport-based program of The Schmidt Family Foundation, working to promote sustainability through the platform of sailing.

Sail Newport and 11th Hour Racing have partnered before on sustainability, sailing and marine education programs. 11th Hour Racing was a sustainability sponsor for the 2012 America's Cup World Series Exploration Zone and supported a similar educational initiative for the Volvo Ocean Race Newport Stopover in 2015. 11th Hour Racing has also supplied re-useable water bottles to thousands of Sail Newport students, volunteers and regatta entrants, helping to eliminate single-use plastics.

Unexpectedly, Bischoff and her Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, Admiral, made two new friends. Joanne O'Dwyer, of Newport, brought her dog, General Rochambeau, to the groundbreaking. O'Dwyer also enjoys sailing and didn't want to miss the ceremony. Admiral and General Rochambeau liked each other, too.

Photo Captions: Gov. Lincoln Chafee and his daughter, Louisa at yesterday's Sail Newport groundbreaking. Louisa represented the U.S. in sailing at the 2016 Olympics in Brazil; Sail Newport founders Bart Dunbar, left, and Robin Wallace turn shovels at the groundbreaking ceremony; Brad Martin, principal of Newport's Met School; Summer resident and longtime Sail Newport supporter, Connie Bischoff, center, with Admiral, her Cavalier King Charles Spaniel.

Credit: Margo Sullivan