$25-Million Project : Former Army Fort Off Maine Coast to Be Resort

The 20-acre parade ground is deserted, its silence broken only by the wind that howls past the ring of red brick buildings that are the crumbling remains of a once-proud Army fort on this Casco Bay island.

Standing beside a bare 100-foot flagpole, Hank Carlock closes his eyes and imagines how Ft. McKinley looked decades ago. In his mind’s eye, he can see drill sergeants barking orders as troops in starched khakis pour from barracks and line up in formation.

“I hate to see us lose history. It’s the only way for us to learn anything, to see what’s come before,” says Carlock, who is managing a $25-million project that will turn the former artillery base into an upscale resort while retaining its slate roofs and other architectural details.

Has Its Critics

The project has won qualified endorsement from a Maine environmental group, but some critics worry it will lead to more development of the islands along the state’s ragged Atlantic coast.

Carlock is project manager for Dictar Associates, the Falmouth developer that has begun the conversion of the barracks and officers’ quarters into 134 town house and condominium units, priced from $180,000 to $270,000 apiece. The project will cost $25 million. Occupancy is planned for summer 1988.

Ft. McKinley, 15 minutes by boat from downtown Portland, was one of a string of coastal installations built by the Army around the turn of the century as a defense against naval bombardment.

Like Ft. McKinley, whose big guns were never fired in anger, most of the Army posts were abandoned years ago. Damage from fire and vandals compounded the slow decay of weather and neglect.

A Three-Year Effort

Dictar, which bought the property in 1984 for $800,000, tried for nearly three years before winning state and local approval for conversion of the buildings.

Still to be decided is whether the developer will be permitted to go ahead with the second phase of the project, the sale of 74 adjacent one- to two-acre house lots, some of which include artillery emplacements made of reinforced concrete.

Dictar’s critics, including some residents of other Maine islands, argued that allowing such vast development on Great Diamond would set a precedent for other offshore places.

But the developer maintained that the 48 existing buildings and water and sewer systems already on the island made the Ft. McKinley project a special case.

Unique Opportunity

“This is a one-of-a-kind opportunity,” says David Bateman, a Dictar partner, who scoffs at suggestions of a “domino theory” of island development elsewhere.

The Island Institute, a Rockland-based environmental group that advocates a balance of development and conservation on Maine’s offshore islands, has given its qualified endorsement to the fort renovation, while opposing the state’s issuance of a license allowing discharge of treated sewage into the bay.

“We thought it was important that the island not be ruined to save the fort,” said Philip Conkling, the institute’s executive director.

The group remains opposed to subdividing the surrounding property into 74 building lots, a concept the state’s environmental board rejected last year.

Strict Standards

“We think that’s the worst case of strip development of a shoreline of an island that has yet come before a state or local board,” Conkling said.

The project coincides with unprecedented demand for property along the Maine coast. At the same time, Mainers concerned about their quality of life are mobilizing against such development in fear that it will destroy the state’s special character and harm the environment.

The project managers are working to meet strict standards set by the U.S. Department of Interior that will enable purchasers who use their condominium units as rentals to qualify for historic preservation tax credits. To achieve those standards, the developer must leave the gray slate roofs, brick exteriors and granite foundations of the Georgian-style buildings in their original conditions.

“Everything has to stay just as it was,” says Carlock.

Costly Preservation

Historic authenticity has its price. Slate roofing costs $540 per 100 square feet, 10 times that of conventional shingles, he says. Replacement windows and pillars for the barracks and officers’ quarters must be milled to order, adding substantially to the cost.

No such restrictions apply to the interiors, which will include such amenities as Jacuzzi tubs and wall-to-wall carpets. The resort will also include tennis courts, an Olympic-size swimming pool, three private beaches, ballfields, several specialty shops and a dockside restaurant and lounge.

Once home to more than 1,000 troops, the fort that encompasses roughly half of 400-acre Great Diamond Island was sold as surplus in 1961 after the city of Portland and the state of Maine refused to accept it for a dollar, deeming it a “white elephant.”