The Greenport Yacht & Shipbuilding Company, the storied Carpenter Street property known by Greenporters as the Shipyard, may soon change hands, and its potential new owner is exploring whether Suffolk County’s new Working Waterfront Protection Plan will be able to help keep the property in use as a vital resource for Greenport’s maritime industries.
Nick Voulgaris III, who is in contract to purchase the property from Stephen Clarke, received a favorable reception for his plans at the Suffolk County Working Waterfront Protection Committee’s June 9 meeting.
Members of the committee called the shipyard a poster child for the new program, which is designed to keep historically working waterfront properties from being sold off to developers looking to build high end waterfront projects — a rapid change that is happening all over Long Island.
The committee is charged with evaluating whether properties meet numerous criteria for working waterfront and recommending properties to the Suffolk County Legislature for the purchase of easements ensuring the property remains used in historic industries — including commercial fishing, boatbuilding, dockbuilding and aquaculture.
The county has allocated $2.6 million to the program this year, with a total commitment of $9.5 million between 2026 and 2028.
Mr. Voulgaris is no stranger to preservation. An entrepreneur with a home in Greenport, he had purchased the historic Kerber Farm in Huntington in 2013 to keep it from being redeveloped as condominiums. It is now an organic farm and educational non-profit.
A big fear among Greenporters had long been that the shipyard property — the only shipyard in Suffolk County with a rail line that can haul out large fishing vessels and the Shelter Island ferry fleets — could be redeveloped as condominiums. In 2023, the Greenport Village Board adopted numerous zoning changes, including one that would not allow condominium developments on parcels zoned “Waterfront Commercial,” including the shipyard.
The shipyard, which is 4.3 acres in size, leases space to one of the largest dockbuilders on the East End, Costello Marine, which keeps its barges there. It is also home to Anders Langendal & Sons Boatbuilders, and Suffolk County leases dock space there.
Mr. Voulgaris is asking for a Working Waterfront easement on 3.2 acres of the property, he told the committee at the June 9 meeting at Suffolk County Community College in Riverhead. He said he envisions the area of the property not in the easement would be used for “a hybrid of uses that will support the village and the local economics of the downtown,” and would include businesses that could complement the shipyard’s work, such as a yacht brokerage and boat insurance provider.
“The shipyard has been closed to the public for the last 100 years,” he said. “My plan, in addition to being an asset for the local fishermen and the ferry companies, is to open it up to the public, where the public has access to the waterfront.”
He said that, in addition to continuing to provide services and space for the commercial waterfront businesses there, he wants to refurbish a shellfish hatchery as a cooperative for local oyster companies, provide a dinghy dock, kayak rentals and a kayak launch, and welcome tall ships to a long pier on the property, which would be open to the public. He said he would also like to provide space for a boat towing company, harbor tour and fishing excursion businesses and a pedestrian ferry.
“The idea is to help Greenport thrive and get people to the waterfront,” he said. “When I was a child, there was a dinghy dock at Preston’s. I want to put in 50 transient moorings, so the public can visit the shipyard, get into the working waterfront, and then spend money downtown.”
His proposal, titled “Greenport Shipyard and Oyster Farm,” garnered 21 out of 25 points on the Working Waterfront Committee’s rating sheet — a very high score, said Suffolk County Economic Working Waterfront Administrator Rob Carpenter (formerly of the Long Island Farm Bureau), who ran the meeting.
Mr. Carpenter said the application included letters of support from both the North and South ferry companies, who both said “the facility is vital to their operations,” and that without the shipyard their combined nine ferries would have to cross the Long Island Sound to be serviced in Connecticut or Rhode Island.
“It’s an incredible property,” said Mr. Carpenter.
“I grew up going to Greenport as a child, and it dawned on me when I bought a home in Greenport that the historic and vintage boats that are in the front yard of the shipyard today are the same ones that were there 40 years ago,” said Mr. Voulgaris. “I wondered to myself, in the world of Blackstone buying every shipyard that they can get — Safe Harbor, private equity money — how is this shipyard still here, this jewel adjacent to the village? How has it not been gobbled up?”
Mr. Voulgaris, who said he is in contract to purchase the property after three years of discussions with Mr. Clarke, told the committee he expects to close on the deal in September of this year.
“Mr. Clarke was very concerned with the future of the shipyard, and what would happen to it after he passes on,” he said. “We made this deal for me to buy it and preserve it. When we started hearing about the Working Waterfront committee, he didn’t have the energy to take this on, so he has empowered me as the buyer to look at this as a potential option for saving the shipyard.”
The shipyard was founded in 1840, he said, taking care of sailing and fishing craft and then building ships for the U.S. Navy during World War I and World War II. During the war years, he said, the shipyard had 1,200 employees and its own newspaper, The Bowline. The affordable housing complex Driftwood Cove, near the Greenport School, was built to house its workforce during World War II.
The property, he said, has 3,600 linear feet of shoreline and diesel and gasoline fuel tanks capable of storing 24,000 gallons of fuel, which he hopes to put back into service — though members of the committee warned that there are currently tax disadvantages in New York that are sending mariners to neighboring states for fuel.
Members of the committee heartily supported the idea, though they said they wanted more clarity on access to Suffolk County’s dock space and on how the many uses mentioned fit within what is and isn’t allowed in the easement area and what is and isn’t allowed in Greenport’s Waterfront Commercial zoning district.
“I believe we should push forward with this,” said Committee Member Paul McCormick of Brookhaven, who advocated that the committee immediately recommend the project to the Legislature’s Environmental, Parks & Agriculture committee. “If you can’t forward this, what can you forward?”
Other committee members said they’d like to table the application until they had all the answers. The votes to table ended up winning, though members said they would like to schedule a special meeting before their next regular meeting in August to vote to move the application forward, if all their questions are answered.
“We’re under the microscope, gang. This is the poster child for working waterfront,” said Tom Kehoe of Huntington. “Let’s get it right, put a bow on it, and send it to the Legislature.”
Greenport Village Trustee Mary Bess Phillips, who also sits on the Working Waterfront Committee, said she intends to recuse herself from voting on the application. Her family runs a commercial fishing business that does business with the shipyard, but the committee’s legal counsel recommended she recuse herself because the project could come before the Village Board at some point for permits.
Ms. Phillips said she planned to recuse herself anyway, but stressed the importance of the shipyard to Greenport.
“The property is highly needed. It provides secure commercial fishing and related access that will not be met by any other property,” she said. She added that, while the rail line to haul out boats is unique and vital, the shipyard doesn’t currently have high tech equipment that newer vessels need. New investment, she said, could make the shipyard as busy as shipyards at major fishing ports in Rhode Island.
“A lot of people visit shipyards. It’s a great attraction,” she said. “I’m really excited to see this as one to be proposed.”
Southold Town Land Preservation Coordinator Lillian McCullough, who represents Southold Town on the committee, said she wanted to make sure the proper amount of space was allocated for each of the uses, including parking.
“It’s important we make sure we recommend a design configuration that works,” she said. “If it doesn’t work, it creates conflicts forever.”
“I do believe this is really quintessential working waterfront,” said Suffolk County Legislator Jim Mazzarella, who serves on the committee. “The property is magnificent, and the investment is going to be magnificent.”
He said Mr. Voulgaris should be prepared for the Legislature to ask questions about his financial ability to revive the shipyard.
Mr. Voulgaris said he would have preferred the application not have been tabled, and he is also exploring other options for funding the project.
“Some of our legislators have districts that don’t touch water,” said Suffolk County Legislator Ann Welker, who is both a member of the Working Waterfront Committee and the Environment, Parks & Agriculture (EPA) Committee. “We will absolutely introduce this project in the EPA and applaud and support it, but sometimes they need a minute to understand it. In the interest of drawing back the lens and looking at the 30,000-foot view, a little timeout here is a good thing.”
The June 9 session was only the second meeting of the Working Waterfront committee, which is still working out the details of the program. It has made just two recommendations to date, one of which it made earlier in the June 9 meeting — to ask the Legislature to consider preserving the Southold Marine Center, a family-owned marina just west of downtown Southold that provides dockage to local baymen and fishermen.
The committee also voted at the June 9 meeting to include kayak rentals and visiting tall ships in the list of approved working waterfront uses, after the committee’s legal counsel, Michael Camacho, said those uses were not yet part of the working waterfront criteria. He added that the legal documents creating the easement would need to be signed by the owner of the property as of the date of the signing.
The county would next need to appraise the value of the easement, a process that it has not yet gone through.
“It’s a property that we need to figure out a way to preserve,” said North Fork Suffolk County Legislator Greg Doroski, who is not on the committee but sat in on the meeting. “There’s definite urgency, but going through this for the first time, it’s important to get things right, not just for this applicant, but for future applicants. I think the idea of holding a special meeting is a good compromise position. It is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, once we get the answers.”
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