Stokes Says He Didn't "Lose" The America's Cup

“Being a Newporter, and old Newport family, I think the greatest mistake we have made in the last 30 years is allowed our waterfront to move away from a working waterfront that was marine dependent, into a residential lifestyle waterfront. Because of that we have lost shipyards, we have lost craftsmen and craftswomen who worked on boats and marine trades and commercial fishing...” - Keith Stokes, Executive Director of Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation

Although local sailing fans might be disappointed that the 34th America’s Cup race will take place in San Francisco and not Newport, for Keith Stokes, Executive Director of Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation, it presented an opportunity to accelerate plans for infrastructure improvements to Fort Adams State Park, which he said is required in order to attract and sustain large sailing events such as the Cup.

Patch met Stokes at the State Fishing Pier in Newport,  a location symbolic to his passion for maritime infrastructure in Rhode Island, as he helped pass permanent zoning laws that have preserved the site for traditional maritime use and prevented residential development. Stokes discussed the plans to improve Fort Adams State Park and explained how the discussions with Oracle did not end with a final race in Newport, but gained enough interest at a state level to provide a dedicated funding stream that will help manifest Stoke’s long, strategic maritime development vision into a reality.

The plan includes a floating dock, grandstands, road development and placements for removable spectator viewing.  The .pdf of the plan is available in the gallery to the right.  

Patch:  How did the conversations start with Oracle?

Stokes:   "We formed a committee of really, the leaders in the industry.  We had Mr. Halsey Herreshoff, David Elwell of New York Yacht Club, Brad Read of Sail Newport - we had just a great group of men and women who could really help us put this together.  We had a series of publicly posted, public meetings. In fact, I hosted all the meetings in either City Hall or the Newport Police Station so that people in the community could be actively involved and engaged in what we were planning."

Patch: What was the response from Oracle?

Stokes: "They came back to us and said we are trying create this new venue called the America’s Cup World Series Regatta event. This event would be held over multiple years in multiple locations, nationally and internationally, leading to final America’s Cup match in 2013 held in San Francisco. So we knew that."

Patch: So you going into this, knew that the final America’s Cup race was going to be held in San Francisco?

Stokes: "Yes.  Our response was, tell us what the infrastructure needs are, what are the bid requirements [to participate in the events leading up to the final race].  And they said we are putting that together, they aren’t going to have that until later in the year.  They won the Cup in February, we are reaching out to them a few weeks later. We were very aggressive.
 
So what we decided to do as a planning committee is, let’s begin to look at what are the facilities that we would have available in Newport, today, in 2010, that could meet the needs of an America’s Cup venue and also give us facilities that would meet the needs of other types of sailing events and racing events.

Tall Ships is looking to return in 2012. That would be the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812.

We then as a committee said, let’s look at all the potential sites, public and private that would have amenities in place to meet the needs of having sailing events.  

We looked at Fort Adams, this location [State Fishing Pier], Newport Shipyard, Goat Island. We looked at the former Navy hospital property, north end of Newport, we looked at the Navy piers, we looked down in Portsmouth at the Melville section.  But we all found the fact was, this type of event has to be in Newport Harbor, close to Newport Harbor.

Fort Adams State Park is a state owned asset. The people of Rhode Island own Fort Adams State Park.  So we simply said, it’s an 80 acre park, with a fort, on a peninsula that’s interior to our harbor.  It’s just perfectly suited.  

So we simply suggested, why not look at Fort Adams and let’s accelerate the building of infrastructure, and have a world class sailing center here. Right now you have Sail Newport, one of the finest sailing education training programs in the country.  You know, that’s a great asset. You have the yachting museum. Great asset. You have Fort Adams trust for tourism activities in the Fort.  

So we simply came in and said why don’t we come up with an accelerated infrastructure plan to meet the needs of not only an America’s Cup event, but any and all sailing events who have said to us consistently over the years, you don’t have the basic infrastructure to sustain our event.  

What happens is an event comes in, they may use Newport Shipyard, but the next year they might not have access to that because they have business and activity.  

Newport calls itself the sailing capital of the world, with very few public sailing amenities.  When you go to Annapolis, and you go to Charleston, and you go to other locations, that’s a competitive issue. If we are going to be the sailing capital of the world, then let’s put our money where our mouth is. Let’s put the public investments in and buy the amenities.  

[Oracle] physically came on July 2nd. We had a major event. We had thousands of people at the Fort. They brought the Cup back physically...I took a lot of the Oracle people around the Fort, and said, what would you think if we converted this into a world class sailing center?  

And they said, "That’s exciting.' "

Patch: What is the difference today with the America’s Cup as opposed to historically when it was in Newport?

Stokes: "The America’s Cup traditionally were the majestic J boats, this is very important...the racing course from 1983 and earlier, was off the coast of Brenton Point, it was miles off the coast. The only way you could see it, when I was a little kid, you could sit out on Brenton Point park, on a beach chair with binoculars and see them tacking, and barely make out sails.  What was really exciting is when the ships were back into the shipyard here, and they were laying out sails, and the crew were there. But the race was very distant.  

This new venue that Oracle is creating, is what is called Extreme Sailing. Now they have 45-foot or 75-foot catamarans that can go up to 20 plus knots.  It’s a very short race course.  It’s an in-harbor race course."

Patch: What happened to the discussions last December?

Stokes:  "In December of last year, they came to us to say they were having problems with San Francisco.  Could Newport accelerate [the Fort Adams improvements] for a final match race? They came to me in the second week of December, when I had already submitted the proposal for 2012 or 2013.   They said, could you accommodate something next year?  The issue was how quickly could we commit.  

I didn’t have a funding stream in place. I couldn’t look them in the eye and say, 1,000 percent, we will have all this done, we will be ready to go.  In fact, we have a governor coming in, we have a governor coming out...but we are going to work on it, and we did. We put a lot together.  But we knew San Francisco was going to figure it out, and they did.  

People were disappointed, but I want to be very clear, my goal was always to accelerate these improvements because once we have these in place, now I have a competitive fixed asset that I can market and sell. That’s what I wanted to do.

It’s a business at the end of the day, and I fully respect that.  On the other hand, I have to represent the Governor and the people of Rhode Island, and that means any public dollars should go into public assets and infrastructure.  I am very passionate about that.  That has been my career.  We have an opportunity here to accelerate investments in the people’s park, in the people’s fort. And this is an asset that will stay here with the people long after America’s Cup and you and I, if we do it right."