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Business & Tech

Quonset Welcomes Mill Creek Marine To Waterfront

Indoor dry stack facility at Allen Harbor expands boating capacity.

With the grand opening of Mill Creek Marine, the Allen Harbor waterfront at Quonset Point officially gained a new neighbor on Saturday.

Adjacent to the Quonset Yacht Club and on the site of the former home of the U.S. Naval Air Station base commander, Mill Creek Marine ushers in a new era for the boating industry in Rhode Island.

“We are the first indoor dry-stack storage facility in Rhode Island,” said owner James Shriner as he greeted visitors to the site. “We are capable of storing 72 boats right now, but we will be equipped to handle up to 168 boats in 11,000 square feet in the future."

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Such a facility is common in other parts of the country and even in a few other places in New England. Boat owners can call ahead to Mill Creek for their boat to either be taken out or placed in the water by trailer and forklift. At the end of the day, the boat is washed off before carefully being stacked in the facility.

Working on his 21-foot Crown Line cuddy cabin boat laced inside the facility. Peter Hail of Cumberland said he had his boat serviced and moored at Johnson’s Boat Yard in Wickford before the company changed its name and moved here.

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“I am familiar with the concept and liked it," said Hail. “I am just equipping my boat as a weekender. And there won't be any more barnacles to scrape soon," he said, pointing to some on his boat which recently had been placed inside.

Shriner pointed to the imposing Wiggins Bull forklift on display which had a small boat firmly locked in its grasp at the entrance to the facility.

“It is 20 feet long and is capable of lifting up to 22,000 pounds," he said. "It has an upward lift of 42 feet and a downward, or negative lift of 12 feet. The longest boats to fit into the building can usually extend up to 38 feet and perhaps a few up to 42 feet."

Besides building the facility, a sturdy 180-foot dock made of synthetic decking was constructed for boats to either be launched or temporarily docked for movement in or out of the facility. A pit will be constructed for the forklift to go down directly down into the water, scoop up a vessel and then travel back to the building for overnight storage.

Docking was built only after extensive dredging and grading was made, conforming to strict state, local and federal regulations and specifications. The docking can be expanded 340 feet more as demand increases. 

“This was a six-year process,” said Shriner who, after buying Johnson’s Boat Yard in 2004, was already planning on expansion elsewhere. Once he bought the property, the blueprints were soon in place to build this 52-foot high building on the four-acre site.

“We worked with the CRMC, DEM, EPA, SBA, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Quonset Development Corporation, town of North Kingstown, historical societies and even a Native American organization,” Shriner said. “There was some Native American activity on a remote part of the site, but it is well-protected and will not be disturbed.”

While this large state-of-the art dry stack storage facility is the first of its kind in the state, it is very common elsewhere. And that is what appealed to Darren Talbert, a former Florida resident who moved to Greenville a few years ago. 

“I left the boat in Florida until they opened up here,” Talbert said of his 30-foot Monterey. “I was just going down there and using it and then storing it. Now I can pull it out, clean it, and have it put away and not have to winterize it or pay for maintenance costs.”

But this is just the mere tip of the iceberg regarding the future, he said. Mill Creek Marine obtained a permit this year for a to be installed which will generate enough power for the facility with plans to sell any additional electricity to National Grid.

Funding was facilitated by Independence Bank of East Greenwich though, that, too, was a long process. “We made a pitch, they saw the site, liked what they saw and came through for us,” said Shriner. “They helped us orchestrate it through SBA guaranteed funds.”

With relationships already forged within North Kingstown and the Ocean State boating community, Shriner envisions a bright future for the company, which also services and sells boats.

"North Kingstown is a nice area to live, has a rail station going in with a commuter stop to Providence and Boston and is easier to reach by road than from the South Shore to Boston," he said. "I can see this area becoming a bedroom community for both those cities."

But his main focus is on attracting customers to the facility and he says recent boating trends make his facility attractive to recreational boaters. “This is a solution for the weekenders who want to spend two or more days a week on the water and don’t want to bother with the maintenance costs," Shriner said.

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