PROVINCETOWN — The large, decaying buildings that formerly housed fish-processing businesses, an industrial freezer, a pair of restaurants, and several apartments at 227, 227R, and 229 Commercial St. are mostly just called “the Old Reliable” now — when they are spoken of at all.
Commercial Street
RISING WATERS
Townspeople and Consultants Head Deeper Into Coastal Resilience Plan
Provincetown’s future floodplains include large swathes of its historic core
PROVINCETOWN — Four winter storms in the last seven years have pushed seawater across Commercial Street and into neighborhoods, inundating homes and businesses near town hall in 2018, along Howland Street in 2022, and around Suzanne’s Garden in December 2023 and January 2024.
In response, the town is creating a coastal resilience plan to assess neighborhoods’ vulnerabilities and provide a menu of options, including timelines and cost estimates for different strategies.
The planning effort kicked off with a public engagement event on the lawn of town hall on June 27; two more public sessions will be held in the fall and winter. The three companies that are developing the $300,000 plan — Scape Landscape Architecture, the Woods Hole Group, and Environmental Design and Research (EDR) — will present their results next spring.
The planning effort is modeled on Nantucket’s and was the first goal of the town’s Coastal Resiliency Advisory Committee when it began meeting in 2022. The plan will lay out near-term fixes and long-term approaches that town government and homeowners can adopt.
“We’re trying hard to get solutions that can be used within zero to five years,” said Russ Kleekamp, head engineer at EDR’s Hyannis office, to homeowner Jeanmarie Kaselau at the town hall event. “We have current needs now with flooding and bigger needs down the road, and we have to get the current needs addressed,” he said.
Kaselau’s house on Howland Street flooded in December 2022, and she has used sandbags to keep water out in subsequent storms. After the Jan. 13, 2024 storm, she bought plastic barriers that are held upright by sandbags and the weight of oncoming seawater to protect her property.
Kaselau asked Kleekamp if it were possible to add pumps to the town’s stormwater drains, which rely on gravity to carry water to the harbor and are impaired when the outfalls are under the water line, as happens during storm surges.
Kleekamp said that adding pumps to a municipal stormwater system is possible but expensive, and that state or federal funding would likely be needed.
Shedding light on that mix of public and private options — including how long they could take — is the goal of the plan, Kleekamp told the Independent.
“We’re looking at town-owned assets, but we’re also looking at inundation pathways in the neighborhoods and how you can try to solve those,” he said. “Some of the big flooding issues are on the flanks of the town where you don’t have municipal facilities but you have a lot of residents.”
Think Big, Start Small
Maps on the town hall lawn showed that the town has had a shifting shoreline for centuries. The intersection of Snail Road and Commercial Street used to be the location of an inlet called Junky’s Harbor, according to an 1835 map, while the Herring Cove Beach parking lots are built on the former location of Lansy’s Harbor.
The Provincetown airport, which lies inside the historic footprint of Hatch’s Harbor, will be below the daily mean high water mark by 2050, according to another map. MacMillan Pier would be covered by a typical day’s highest tide by 2070, and a major storm could put Lopes Square under four to seven feet of water by then.
“I think these transects that show flood levels in relation to actual buildings are really instructive,” said advisory committee member Mark Adams. “Everybody who adapts now, such as by elevating a house, is going to have to adapt again later. It doesn’t stop.”
Committee chair Michelle Stefani said that adaptations like sea walls can also change the patterns of sand accretion on nearby beaches, which makes prediction more difficult. Even the town’s wave attenuator, which protects the fishing fleet on the east side of MacMillan Pier from storm damage, could be changing the sand accretion patterns at nearby Johnson Street Beach, Stefani said.
One goal of the public engagement sessions, according to Rikerrious Geter of Scape Landscape Architecture, is to gauge the public’s interest in various interventions.
“There’s a lot of appetite for maintaining the natural character of Provincetown using dunes, for example, but depending on the site, those can be washed away,” said Geter. “There won’t be one solution for every part of town.”
The town’s historic district is a unique complication because it is so large, Geter said. The consultant team had prepared a map that marked historic structures inside the town’s future floodplains but didn’t present it because “it was pretty much everything,” Geter said.
In the town’s most recent major storm on Jan. 13, it was town-provided sandbags that did much of the work of corralling the flooding. The dept. of public works had secured a sandbag-filling machine from Barnstable County and filled hundreds of sandbags for residents to carry away in their own vehicles before the storm.
A line of those sandbags along Commercial Street mostly blocked floodwaters from filling Daggett Lane that day — even though the water level in the harbor on Jan. 13 was almost a foot higher than during the storm that flooded Daggett Lane and Howland Street in 2022.
Those small-scale strategies are important, said Joe Famely of the Woods Hole Group.
“There may not be the capacity, either physically or monetarily, to knock down all flood risk in any of these places,” said Famely. “But I think there’s real value in exploring mitigation for properties that are highly exposed, and if we can help identify neighborhood-scale solutions, that would be a big help to the people who live there.”
ROAD SAFETY
Opinions Collide on Rules for Electric Vehicles on Commercial Street
Three select board members favor a ‘walk zone’; public hearing set for June 24
PROVINCETOWN — Disagreement about public safety on Commercial Street kept the select board from finding a consensus on May 13, with three members supporting a “walk zone” that would require riders of bicycles, electric bicycles, scooters, and skateboards to dismount in congested parts of the roadway during July and August. Two members opposed the idea.
The board ultimately deferred a decision until after a hearing of the licensing board on new regulations for electric scooters and a public hearing on June 24 to consider broader changes for rented and personal vehicles.
New electric scooter rules were already in the works when a collision on Commercial Street on May 4 sent pedestrian Corey Johnson to Cape Cod Hospital in an ambulance.
“I was walking in front of Adams Pharmacy when I was slammed by a very large electric skateboard,” Johnson told the board. “It was a good-size skateboard, almost a surfboard on wheels, and I fell forward, almost blacked out, was screaming with pain, and could barely stand up.”
Johnson said EMS responders were worried he had a concussion and insisted on the ambulance ride. “Thankfully, I didn’t have a concussion, but I’m in a boot and on crutches,” he said. “I love Provincetown. I ride my bike up and down Commercial Street, but I do think some of these electric vehicles are dangerous.”
The electric skateboard operator, who was traveling against the direction of traffic, has not been identified. The Provincetown police refused to provide a copy of the incident report.
At the select board meeting, taxi driver Philip Desmarais and former board member Austin Knight agreed with Johnson.
“I’m shocked that we haven’t had a fatality yet,” said Desmarais. “I don’t know the solution. Everyone’s on their phone all the time, not looking up.”
Board members agreed that Commercial Street has grown more chaotic as electric bikes, scooters, and skateboards proliferate. The board drafted a list of regulations for the licensing board to consider, including for pedicabs, electric scooter and bike rentals, and “other devices, motorized and nonmotorized.”
Among the possibilities were limits on how many licensed pedicabs and rented scooters should exist; hours of operation for rented scooters; programmed speed limits for all electric vehicles; and a schedule of fines and penalties for both licensed drivers and company owners.
That motion passed unanimously. But disagreement broke out when the subject turned to regulating noncommercial traffic.
The ‘Walk Zone’
“We’ve had a lot of discussion about what might work,” said chair Dave Abramson, “and one idea is a ‘walk zone’ from Center Street to Masonic Place, where no matter what you’re on, you walk. From an officer’s point of view, it can be difficult to tell what’s motorized and what’s not motorized, but it’s easy to tell if someone is riding versus walking.”
Board member Erik Borg said allowing bicycles to travel both ways on Commercial Street was not the problem. “I think we should be focusing on the issue, which to me is the electric bikes and scooters,” he said.
“I’m concerned about pushing traffic out to Bradford Street,” said board member Austin Miller. “We’ve also had big safety incidents and injuries there. We need to look at this comprehensively and not at piecemeal solutions.” Miller called for a comprehensive traffic study before changing the rules.
“Everyone would pay attention if a walk zone happened,” said board member John Golden, “and then if things started to look good, we could let bicycles back in.”
“I think the idea of a walk zone is very interesting,” said board member Leslie Sandberg. “It would only be for a few months, and it might be a really nice experience.”
“I don’t think we should be punishing people who are legally riding their nonmotorized bikes,” said Miller.
“We’re not criminalizing people; we’re treating everybody equally,” said Sandberg.
Borg said the police should be pushed to enforce the existing rule restricting motorized bikes and scooters from traveling the wrong way on Commercial Street before passing any new regulations.
Enforcement Issues
Provincetown’s traffic regulations already state that “motorized bicycles and motorized scooters shall comply with the one-way directional traffic flow on Commercial Street.”
At the July 2018 meeting when the select board adopted that rule, Provincetown Police Chief Jim Golden said his department wouldn’t focus on issuing citations to violators.
Chief Golden was not at the May 13 meeting. Sandberg and Abramson asked Town Manager Alex Morse what kind of enforcement they could expect from the police. Morse said he was working with the department on a campaign to raise awareness of bike and scooter regulations.
Seasonal Community Service Officers (CSOs), who don’t have the authority to issue citations, will educate people on road safety, said Morse. They will learn to use whistles to signal violators to pull over and then distribute postcards to educate riders on the laws.
“We’re not going to be able to enforce every single device, even with a regulation,” said Morse. “We have limited resources. But I want to make sure that the resources and staff that we have are doing more than they have done in the past around enforcement and public education.”
“If we jump too soon into enforcement without the education component, it upsets a lot of people,” said Deputy Police Chief Greg Hennick. In addition to CSOs, the education campaign would use social media, banners, and sandwich boards to promote existing rules.
Borg and Sandberg asked Hennick to explain how CSOs would distribute postcards to people on bikes and scooters who are riding quickly by. Hennick said they would be trained to approach cyclists and scooter riders as they stop at intersections and use whistles to pull rule-breakers over.
Sandberg asked if the CSOs could be on bicycles. Hennick said many of the officers had already asked to work shifts on bicycles, and that training for such work would begin in early June.
Without much other agreement in sight, the board asked Morse and Hennick to focus on public education for the next six weeks and set a public hearing to consider more sweeping changes on June 24.
THE SEASON
Spring Shuffle Has Become an Anxious Scramble
Keeping the faith during Provincetown’s annual housing shift
PROVINCETOWN — Time is running out for Borislav Ivanov and his family. On May 15, the lease expires on the Commercial Street apartment where he, his wife, Iliana, and their three-year-old son have lived since October.
ON WITH THE SHOW
The Art House Will Return — With New Producers
Renovations are stalled till winter, but one performance venue will open this summer
PROVINCETOWN — Last season was producing director Mark Cortale’s last at the Art House, the intimate Commercial Street venue that launched his now-international career.
Since 2011, Cortale had brought summer shows by Broadway stars, drag performers, singers, and comedians to the building’s two 127-seat theaters. But with needed building renovations due to begin during the off-season, he said an emotional goodbye to the space and its fans last October.
At that time, building owner Ben deRuyter and tenants Bobby and Bena Lymbertos told the Independent they envisioned changes to both of the theaters and the restaurant — and they weren’t sure what their timeline would be. The Lymbertoses bought the 1620 Brewhouse business from deRuyter in 2022 and began leasing the theater spaces last April.
Now, according to deRuyter, the renovations won’t get underway until at least next winter. So, the Art House will present a season of drag shows and other live performances this summer. But with Cortale having moved on to other projects, the change in who’s behind those shows has caused some controversy.
According to deRuyter, he was approached last year by Producer Entertainment Group, a New York- and Los Angeles-based company representing drag artists and LGBTQ talent, about the possibility of continuing live shows at the Art House. He turned to them when it became clear that any proposed renovation work would be a ways off, deRuyter said by email last week: “I decided that it would be best for the space to be utilized during the 2024 season.”
Producer Entertainment Group will keep one theater open, deRuyter said. A “Live at the Art House” website promises an announcement of the programming soon, and lists RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars finalist Ginger Minj, a past Art House performer, as coproducer.
Opening one theater, deRuyter said, will allow the Provincetown International Film Festival to use the space in June.
Renovation plans for the building are not finalized but will proceed in phases, said deRuyter. The initial focus will be on the Brewhouse kitchen, with the possibility of a live-entertainment space as well as much-needed workforce housing in the final plans.
Cortale told the Independent that he understood his lease was ending because the Art House space would be turned into a dance club. That led Cortale to believe what he has for months told patrons, sponsors, and performers, as he wrote in a social media post on April 8: “The venue that I poured my heart and soul into would no longer be a theater.”
Cortale said in an interview that he was shocked to learn in late March about “Live at the Art House” from one of the new producers — someone he had worked with for years to book national drag talent here. Shortly after that, Cortale said, he was told by the agent of a Tony Award-winning Broadway star whom he’d brought to the Art House that they had been approached about the new company’s season.
“I understand that legally a lease is a lease,” he said. “But after 13 years, I just would have hoped that someone there would have had the decency to tell me the truth. The way that I found out was pretty devastating.”
Brasswood Inn co-owner Brian Calhoun said he was surprised to get a request on March 30 from a production company he didn’t recognize about donating rooms for performers at an Art House he thought was closed. The inn will continue to offer space for Cortale’s performers, said Calhoun, but he declined the other request.
Cortale said he’s excited to produce a 2024 season of musical, Broadway, and drag performers at Provincetown Town Hall, starting May 26 with Audra McDonald and Seth Rudetsky, and at the Provincetown Theater. Cortale has also been producing theater on Broadway and through his New Works Provincetown, plus musical shows around the country.
Nonetheless, he said, he would have liked to continue programming the Art House venue, where he said he was grateful to have had the chance to learn the business. “The Art House has been kind of my baby since 2011,” Cortale said.
DeRuyter has said he admires what Cortale accomplished in his years at the Art House, but he told the Independent in an email that he has a different perspective on how Cortale’s relationship with the property ended. “Mark did not have a lease in 2023, nor has he had a lease for several years,” he wrote, and “I disagree with Mark’s characterization of past agreements that have been circulated on social media.” He declined to comment further on specifics.
Cortale’s April 8 social media statements about the 2024 Art House situation drew hundreds of supportive and some angry responses. Cortale said he took that public step to clear up confusion with patrons and sponsors about which Provincetown shows this summer are his and to reiterate that it was not his choice to end his Art House affiliation.
No one from Producers Entertainment Group or Ginger Minj’s Fruit Wine Productions responded to emails and phone calls from the Independent seeking additional comment and details about upcoming Art House entertainment, nor did the Lymbertoses.
COASTAL RESILIENCE
A Big Storm, but Less Flooding in Provincetown
Highest storm surge since 2018 meets improved defenses
PROVINCETOWN — The powerful storm that hit New England on Jan. 13 and caused major coastal flooding from Boston to Maine brought several saltwater intrusions to Provincetown.
BUSINESS
The Wired Puppy Is Closing
The year-round gathering spot was not profitable enough, holding company says
PROVINCETOWN — The town’s only year-round sit-down coffee shop is closing. Green Hill Brands, the Delaware holding company behind Wired Puppy, announced on Nov. 16 that Sunday, Nov. 26 will be the last day for its Commercial Street café.
The dog-friendly early-morning and all-afternoon caffeine hub with its orange shiplap walls, community bulletin board, and tables that attract coffee klatches was opened in 2005 by David Mazuchi and Donna Vaillancourt, according to the Cape Cod Times.
Stephen Davis, CEO of Green Hill Brands, said the Revelator Coffee chain owns the Wired Puppy. “Green Hill Brands is just for tax purposes and stuff like that, it’s just how you hold the business.” Davis said. “It’s layers of a corporate entity.”
Davis said Revelator had decided the cost of operating the shop made it unprofitable. Staying afloat through the Outer Cape’s seasonal swings was a challenge, said Davis: “Eight months of the year you’re below water.”
Revelator Coffee, founded in New Orleans and now headquartered in Birmingham, Ala., bought the Wired Puppy in 2017.
Revelator leases the building from the original owners. But Davis said part of what spurred Revelator to make “the difficult decision” to close in Provincetown was that the lease on the space is ending, and the building is for sale.
According to Davis, the company had the opportunity to renew the lease for 2024 but chose not to because of rising rent and flood insurance costs.
As for the Wired Puppy staff, the Green Hill Brands announcement reads, “We believe that taking this step will allow us to focus on the long-term viability of our brand while ensuring the well-being of our dedicated staff.”
Wired Puppy manager Marina Page said she stopped receiving goods for the shop about a month ago, but she and other staff did not receive word about the imminent closure until last Wednesday, one day before the announcement on social media.
“What am I going to do? It was my main job,” said Simeon Samuilov, who works at Wired Puppy year-round. He usually gets to work at 5:15 a.m. “I can’t imagine myself without any of this.”
“I feel for the staff here,” said customer Eric Bomyea. He said Page was devoted to her customers: “The best thing about going to a local place is you have that relationship with a barista and the people behind the counter who know you.”
Page has been the manager for seven years. She had worked in a coffee shop in Silistra, a small town on the Danube River in Bulgaria, where she grew up. She started at Wired Puppy in February 2014.
“The business would have closed a long time ago if it wasn’t for Marina,” said assistant manager Mihaela Chilingirova. “Her main goal was to keep the place open.”
“This is the problem with having outside interests own businesses in Provincetown,” said customer Bob Greene. About Page, he said, “We need to find her a space.”
ROAD SAFETY
Bicycle-Scooter Crash Results in Serious Injury
The cyclist, 30, is flown to Boston and has spinal surgery
PROVINCETOWN — A collision between a bicyclist and an electric scooter rider on Commercial Street on the evening of Aug. 7 resulted in injuries that caused the cyclist, Garen Brennon, 30, to be transported by ambulance to Hyannis and then by helicopter to Boston Medical Center.
Brennon’s father, Delray Brennon, said that his son required spinal surgery four days later. Garen is now recovering at South Dennis Healthcare, a 128-bed nursing home and short-term rehabilitation facility.
“He hit his head, his face was all swollen, and there was a bleed in his brain,” Delray Brennon said. That bleed appears to have been relatively minor, he added, because by morning his son’s speech and memory were fine.
The damage to Garen’s neck was serious, though.
“He’s in rehab because he has a problem walking,” Brennon said. “He also cannot grip anything properly with his hands. He’s coming along gradually. Every day he is improving — but slowly.”
The Provincetown Police Dept. provided a redacted version of the incident report, along with an explanatory letter.
“These records, as you know, are medical in nature,” wrote records clerk Barbara Peters. “For this reason, identifying information of the involved parties as well as information related to their injuries has been redacted from the report.”
The report says the police received four 911 calls at 10:25 p.m. The first Provincetown Fire Dept. ambulance arrived at 10:29 p.m. The ambulance crew transferred Brennon to the helicopter crew at Barnstable Airport at 11:43 p.m., and the flight landed in Boston by midnight.
The bicycle was badly damaged in the crash, with the front wheel smashed inwards and the fork (the part of the frame that supports the wheel) also bent.
The scooter rider was 14 years old, the report said, and accompanied by his father. The report does not describe the scooter or say whether it was privately owned or belonged to either of the two scooter rental companies in town, Storm Scooters Provincetown and Coast Provincetown.
Erika Apicella, a co-owner of Coast Provincetown, and Karen Peliquin and Chris Siar, co-owners of Storm Scooters Provincetown, each told the Independent that their scooters were not involved in the crash.
Apicella said that minors are not allowed to rent scooters at Coast, that a credit card is required to rent them, and that renters are fined $250 if a witness reports a minor on one of her scooters.
The state doesn’t have age restrictions on scooters, Peliquin said, but the town requires riders of rental scooters to be at least 16.
Witnesses told responding officers Michael McCauley and Aaron Kacergis that the cyclist may have caused the accident. The report said Brennon was “weaving around on the street” on his bicycle when the collision took place.
Brennon told his father that a pedestrian had walked in front of the scooter rider, who had swerved to miss her and hit him instead, Delray Brennon said.
The police report was labeled “informational,” and no charges were recommended by the officers.
Delray Brennon told the Independent his family hasn’t received a bill for the Medflight helicopter yet, and he does not know whether to expect one. The elder Brennon lives in Truro, drives for Ptown Taxi, and is from Jamaica; he said his son lives in Provincetown and works in landscaping and trash removal.
Arielle Tasha was getting off work as a manager at JD’s sports bar when the crash occurred. She did not see it happen, she said, but came upon the accident scene at the intersection of Commercial and Ryder streets while medics were tending to Brennon.
“I didn’t see the scooter — it must have been moved to the side already — but the bike was really mangled,” Tasha said. The front wheel had completely folded in on itself, she added.
The scooter rider appeared to be uninjured but badly shaken, Tasha said. It was clear that Brennon’s injuries were serious.
Tasha owns two scooters, one for her and one for her son. She loves them, she said, but she also believes the town needs a more organized approach to traffic.
“I’ve seen all sides of this, as a driver, a scooter user, a pedestrian,” Tasha said. “I’ve had people step right out in front of me on Commercial Street, and I’ve also tried to take Bradford Street and felt how dangerous that can be.”
Tasha said she can set a speed limit on her scooters, which are made by NIU. Both Siar and Apicella confirmed their scooters can be speed-limited, and they each have speed limits in place — these are automated, with speed governors on the vehicles triggered by specific GPS coordinates — in the center of town on the busiest stretch of Commercial Street.
“We’re trying to progress to a fuel-less society, and we don’t want to be banning electric vehicles,” Tasha said. She said her scooter lets her run errands all over town without having to drive her car and struggle to find parking.
“I can also still see the face of the guy who stepped right in front of me — it was that scary,” Tasha added.
“There has to be a happy medium where we can find some safe guidelines and be able to enforce them,” Tasha said. “We have to find a way to keep everybody safer.”
UNSUNG HEROES
The Barbacks of Provincetown
Cleaning the dance floors, fetching the ice, and stocking the bars behind the August vibe
PROVINCETOWN — There are no “off weeks” in August. Parking lots are full. Beaches swell with visitors chasing a waning summer sun. Squads of tourists putter down Commercial Street, in and out of shops, restaurants, and bars, causing a commotion that’s both thrilling and fatiguing to locals.
GROWTH
With More Space, Barker Unveils a Bigger Plan for the Waterfront
Architect says the project will restore the town’s memory of its industrial past
PROVINCETOWN — A narrow strip of land that extends from Commercial Street southward to the harbor could, in the not-too-distant future, boast two new hotels with a total of 51 rooms, 13 residential condominiums, two restaurants with bars, some beneath-the-building parking, and a 264-foot-long pier.
A first look at Christine Barker’s proposal for 227-229 Commercial St., properties she purchased for $4.7 million last summer, reveals her intent to expand on her already-approved plans for the abutting Old Reliable Fish House site, where she will construct a mixed-use building with 31 hotel rooms and four condos, a restaurant, bar, and meeting space, some parking, and the pier.
Barker will need to take the new proposal through its own permitting process beginning with an April 5 public hearing before the historic district commission, which is required because the existing buildings at 227-229 Commercial date back to 1900.
The plans for the more recently acquired 229 Commercial St. property include the addition of 18 to 20 more hotel units, nine more residential condos, another restaurant with a bar and a separate lounge area, and parking beneath a three-story building.
The “Little Red” building at 227 Commercial St., where an Essentials store is currently located, will be renovated to house the Provincetown Bookshop, bought in September 2021 by Barbara Clarke, an investor in Barker’s venture, and now operating at 229 Commercial St. Plans call for the future iteration of the bookstore to open to a glass-enclosed conservatory behind the building where a shed now stands.
The front building at 229, with its classical style pediment, was originally the engine room of the Colonial Cold Storage Company. It is structurally sound, according to engineers who have reviewed the plan, and will remain, likely renovated to become a restaurant and bar, according to the architect’s application. The plan calls for making a few adjustments, including the addition of a clay tile roof and ADA accessibility.
Back in 1900, a massive five-story icehouse stood behind the cold-storage company’s engine room. The building standing on that footprint now houses a warehouse, a long-closed restaurant, and nine empty apartments.
No longer structurally sound, that building is targeted for demolition, to be replaced with a building similar in design to the original icehouse. As with the building planned for the Old Reliable Fish House site, however, it will stand taller. That’s because both buildings must be elevated to meet FEMA flood standards, with the first floor sitting on a platform 19 feet above sea level.
The plan calls for separating the front and rear sections of 229 Commercial, leaving a two-inch gap between them. While the rear will sit on a platform, the front will remain at its current street level, as will 227.
An alley that allows public access to the harbor from Commercial Street will get an overhaul.
In his submission to the historic district commission on Barker’s behalf, architect Jeffry Burchard, a principal at Boston-based Machado Silvetti, said the project “will reconnect visitors and residents to Provincetown’s history as a maritime community.
“As the industrial revolution came to Provincetown and with it larger and larger buildings for storing fish, ice-making and shipping operations, the scale of the town began to transform along the waterfront,” Burchard wrote. Between these massive industrial buildings ran passageways used to move goods and equipment between the water and Commercial Street.
“This project, in conjunction with the project at 227R, seeks to literally restore the collective memory of this older land-use pattern,” Burchard wrote. Currently, the ruins of the Old Reliable Fish House stand at 227R. That restored memory will, he continued, “enrich our community as it reminds us of our industrial and maritime past.”
Barker’s approved plan for the Old Reliable property remains stalled in state Land Court, the subject of an appeal focused on the project’s scale by abutter Patrick Patrick, owner of Marine Specialties at 235 Commercial St.
DE-ESCALATION
SWAT Team Defuses a Crisis in Provincetown
A seven-hour impasse with a man barricaded in his home ends peacefully
PROVINCETOWN — Around midday on Tuesday, Feb. 28, Outer Cape residents began noticing increased police traffic on Route 6 as departments from as far away as Bourne responded to an emergency in Provincetown’s West End.
At 12:10 p.m., the town’s Twitter account and then its email alert system notified residents that “an active barricade situation” was underway near the Coast Guard Station on Commercial Street. A man had apparently barricaded himself inside his home.
The town’s alerts did not mention firearms or other reasons the situation was dangerous except to say that officers were attempting to “communicate with the individual and peacefully de-escalate the situation.”
The alert asked residents to avoid the area.
Nearly seven hours later, the situation was resolved peacefully when the man was taken into custody at 6:50 p.m. and brought to a hospital for evaluation. But for most of the rainy day, scores of law enforcement personnel were at an impasse with the man.
According to recordings of a police scanner published by Hyannis News, the man had repeatedly expressed suicidal ideation and was in possession of a weapon.
The scanner recording also indicated that another person was present in the house — apparently the man’s roommate — and had been threatened with the weapon.
“We’re working on a plan to get the other innocent roommate out of there,” an officer on the police scanner said. According to that officer, the only interior escape route was blocked by the man with the weapon.
By 12:45 p.m., the police had blocked off a stretch of Commercial Street from Pleasant Street to Mechanic Street as well as all the cross streets leading to that area from Bradford Street. Police vehicles from Yarmouth, Mashpee, Bourne, Barnstable, Truro, Wellfleet, and Provincetown were parked all around the area.
Wellfleet Police Sgt. Paul Clark, who was stationed at the corner of Bradford and Franklin streets, called it a “very full response” and said that at least 30 Cape Cod SWAT team members were at the scene in full protective gear.
At 1:10 p.m., SWAT team officers were seen bringing a bullhorn to the area from a truck parked near the intersection of Tremont and School streets. The dialogue between the police and the man they were trying to becalm could not be heard from that distance, however.
At 3:40 p.m., the town released a statement saying that the area was still closed to the public but reassuring residents that “this is not a hostage situation at this time, and there is currently no active threat to the broader community.
“Police and negotiators continue to work toward a peaceful resolution with a male who has barricaded himself inside his residence,” that alert said. By that time, the roommate had apparently been safely evacuated.
At 7:30, the town sent out a third alert. The troubled man had been “safely taken into custody” around 6:50 p.m. and was on the way to the hospital.
After the situation was resolved, the Independent contacted state Sen. Julian Cyr, who has advocated for mental health care reform.
“I want to express my heartfelt compassion and understanding for the individual in this distress,” Cyr said, “and my gratitude to the public safety professionals who responded to this challenging situation.
“For anyone who has needed urgent psychiatric care or is a loved one of someone who has needed that care here on the Outer Cape, you know how challenging it is to get access to care,” Cyr said. “This is real for people. If you look at any indicator, or you just talk to your neighbors, you’ll realize that we’ve got a real crisis. The need for mental health care is enormous, and it’s growing. This trying episode is a reminder of that.”
REGULATION
Conservation Commission Fines Canteen Owners
After-the-fact permits will be required; fines will be appealed
PROVINCETOWN — The owners of the Canteen restaurant on Commercial Street had to pay $900 in fines and another $450, double the usual application fee, for putting in an underground propane tank and adding some sand to their outdoor seating area without first getting a signoff from the town’s conservation commission.
The work was done in a protected area and should have been permitted, the commission said.
Co-owners Rob Anderson and Loic Rossignon have paid the fines and application fees and are on the commission’s May 4 meeting agenda to secure after-the-fact permits for the work. But Anderson is upset about the situation. He said they will appeal the fines.
“We do not think we did something wrong, and hope we would win an appeal,” Anderson said.
He blamed the situation on a lack of communication among departments at town hall. “We contracted Days [Propane] to put in the tank, and they went to town hall and pulled a permit with the plumbing inspector,” Anderson said.
The company installed the tank and had the work inspected by the plumbing inspector, who signed off on it, said the Canteen’s owner.
“After the fact, representatives from town hall came back to say we actually should have gotten additional approvals before they granted us permits,” said Anderson.
He argued that town staff should have been communicating with each other. “How are we supposed to know what approvals we need if they don’t tell us, and issue building permits without mentioning that,” he said.
During a conservation commission meeting earlier this month, the town’s environmental planner and conservation agent, Tim Famulare, said the Canteen owners would surely have been aware of the need to secure permits for work in the floodplain and buffer zone of a coastal beach, based on what has been required of them during past projects. They came before the conservation commission when they were expanding seating onto the beach in 2017 and had to comply with a list of conditions.
He and commission chair Alfred Famiglietti have met with the restaurant owners numerous times, Famulare said. Once was for “unauthorized disposal of oyster shells on a protected dune area.”
Famulare painted a grim picture of what could happen if there were a flood where a propane tank that didn’t meet necessary specifications was buried. The tank could collapse under the weight of the saturated ground, he said, or it could become buoyant and cause the connection to the gas line to be severed, resulting in a gas leak.
The enforcement order issued by Famulare cited two violations, at $300 apiece, related to the installation of the underground tank, and one $300 violation related to putting down the sand. He then doubled the usual application fee to $450 because the permits were being requested after the fact.
Before ratifying the enforcement order issued by Famulare, the conservation commission discussed it. Member Nathaniel Mayo asked whether the tank installation and addition of sand would qualify for permitting in their respective locations.
With the right permits, they would be allowed, said Famulare. “Basically, we have to make sure the tanks comply with certain FEMA standards for how they’re installed,” he said. The tank must be on a concrete base and secured with a particular type of fasteners to keep it from lifting if the area is flooded. “It’s not impermissible, but that’s what we would need,” he said.
Rossignon and Anderson hired Safe Harbor Environmental Management shortly after being notified by the town about the violations.
“These things normally would be permitted if you go through the process,” said Safe Harbor Director Gordon Peabody in a phone interview. “When you don’t, it causes a good deal of financial suffering when it’s in a resource area.”
Peabody said the Canteen owners can demonstrate to the commission that the underground tank was properly installed. “The company that installs it supplies photos,” he said. “It’s also behind a concrete seawall.”
During his discussion with the conservation commission, Peabody had said the sand being used in the seating area of the restaurant was a very close match to the existing beach sand. Some had been delivered and was being put in place when Famulare halted the process with the enforcement order.
Famulare confirmed that he had stopped them from putting out any more sand until it could be tested. It was found to be compatible.
Regarding the underground tank, Famulare said the owners have “provided adequate evidence that it was installed to code.” In other words, no major changes will be needed. But they still have to go through the May 4 application hearing to be permitted after the fact.
They also had to file a notice with state Dept. of Environmental Protection.
Regarding Famulare’s reference to the oyster shells being disposed of in the dune area, Anderson said they had been putting the shells there “for the entire history of our restaurant.” They dry them out for use on the driveway.
“One day Alfred [Famiglietti] came and looked and said it was a violation,” Anderson said. “We didn’t know we needed an oyster shell pile shown on our plan.”
He and Rossignon spent the winter improving the property, taking out an old concrete walkway, and replacing it with one that is safer and more accessible, he said. “All of these improvements that we chose to do cost us time and energy during a year when money is short,” Anderson said.
“Actions that are very small and minimal end up sounding malevolent,” he said about the failure to secure permits for the tank and beach sand from the conservation commission. “We weren’t flouting the laws.”
OLD RELIABLE
Tweaked Waterfront Hotel Plan Faces Uphill Fight
Lawsuit on hold while Barker goes before Provincetown planners again
PROVINCETOWN — The future of the disintegrating Old Reliable Fish House property on the Commercial Street waterfront will once again be in the hands of the planning and zoning boards, as developer Christine Barker returns with a slightly tweaked proposal that she hopes will satisfy abutters.
A Land Court appeal blocking the original plan has been put on hold for the moment, but at least two of three abutters appear skeptical about Barker’s revisions.
The components of the ambitious mixed-use project remain the same as in the original version that won approval from the town more than a year ago but was held up by the lawsuit. The plan calls for demolition of the existing structure and construction of a new building for a 31-room hotel, four residential condos, a restaurant and bar, a meeting space, and some parking, along with the reconstruction of the old pier now in ruins.
The proposed height of the building remains the same: about 48 feet above existing grade. The legal height maximum is 33 feet. Part of the boost is required to meet FEMA flood-zone regulations.
In an effort to resolve the appeal pending in Land Court, Barker has made three changes: she reduced the project footprint by about 286 square feet by cutting a planned 10-foot-wide by 28.6-foot-deep section on the northwest corner of the three-story building; eliminated a handicap ramp from the west side and replaced it with stairs; and reduced parking from 14 to 13 spaces.
Handicapped access to the deck and pier would be provided by a different ramp on the east side of the building.
The reconfigured project would result in a little more green area on the lot. It would also improve environmental conditions, according to Barker’s application. Water stations in each room will reduce use of plastic water bottles; solar panels are planned; and green roof technology will be used to reduce carbon footprint and grow vegetables onsite.
It’s still early in the review. Provincetown’s permit coordinator, Ellen Battaglini, said public hearings are set for May 6 before the zoning board and May 13 before the planning board.
Early last year, the planning and zoning boards approved Barker’s original proposal for the fish house property. It had been generally well received by residents and businesspeople, who said it would get rid of a dangerous eyesore — the property was condemned in 2015 following a fire — provide needed year-round hotel rooms, and bolster the downtown economy. But some said the scale of the development was too large for the site.
Last spring, Barker was forced to put her plan on hold when abutters went to court. Scott Ravelson, who owns 229 Commercial St.; Robert Anderson, who owns the Canteen restaurant next door; and Patrick Patrick, owner of Marine Specialties, filed suit against the planning and zoning boards, as well as Barker and H. Bradford Rose, the site’s current owner.
Concerned about the size of the project, the plaintiffs objected to its effects on their properties. They asked the court to annul the variances and special permits issued by the planning and zoning boards, and to issue an injunction preventing the current or future owners of the fish house property from building anything of similar scope and size.
Land Court Judge Michael Vhay initially ordered both sides to try to settle their differences through mediation, but those attempts failed.
In January, Anderson and Barker reached an agreement in concept on a reconfigured design, and Anderson withdrew from the lawsuit. Ravelson, Patrick, Barker, and Rose filed a joint motion a few weeks later to send the matter back to the planning and zoning boards, who agreed to consider permitting a revised development plan.
But that doesn’t mean Patrick and Ravelson are satisfied with the changes. Patrick said last week that he had seen the plans, which are available on the town website, but wasn’t satisfied with what he saw.
“I haven’t had any input into the formation of the new iteration, which surprises me,” Patrick said, “and I’m fairly certain it won’t address my concerns.”
Ravelson declined to comment. In a past interview, however, he expressed concern over the narrow easement on property he owns, which will provide access to the large development on the fish house property. Ravelson has argued that the alley, only nine feet wide, would not provide adequate access for firefighting equipment.
Barker’s project will need the same relief from the town’s requirements during this new review. Those include site plan review by special permit from the planning board, based on the number of requested residential units and the size of the new commercial space. Waivers are being requested from the town’s density requirements, mandated green space of 30 percent or more, and the maximum lot coverage of 60 percent. Special permits for dimensional scale and mixed uses will be requested from the zoning board.
Barker said the initial plan had dozens of letters of support and only a handful of opponents. The development would fill an important need, she said by email.
“In the last year, more inns have been purchased for conversion into private homes,” she wrote. “The number of rooms lost in the last decade or so is between 300 and 400, so adding rooms in the town commercial center is a very positive development.”
RISING WATERS
Before the Deluge: Plans for Commercial Street
‘Creative adaptation’ to flooding and insurance
PROVINCETOWN — Floodwaters are a primal force, invading the landscape, insisting that things must change. In the January 2018 flood, for example, seawater coursed down Gosnold Street and filled a large basin on Bradford Street to a depth of three feet. Scores of homes and other buildings were damaged, including town hall.
Flood insurance does its work more quietly, but it also forces change. The compounding of costs makes inaction too expensive to contemplate. The slow work of spreadsheets enables adaptations that we would otherwise choose to avoid.
There are a variety of changes currently taking place in federal flood insurance rules, and the Independent asked Barnstable County’s floodplain manager, Shannon Hulst, what they might mean for Provincetown.
In the historic district, where hundreds of properties abut the harbor, flood insurance costs are likely to escalate. The good news, according to Hulst, is that the rate of escalation is capped — 18 percent per year for primary residences, and 25 percent per year for commercial property and second homes. The owners of property with federal flood insurance can calculate future costs by compounding what they currently pay by those maximum rates of increase.
“This new rating system FEMA is working on, Risk Rating 2.0 — it’s supposed to figure out what you should be paying,” said Hulst. “Over time, your premium will rise to that new number, [but] it’s not going to change the rate at which your current premium can increase to that new ‘correct’ premium.”
The revised ratings are meant to distribute costs more fairly. Premiums for people who are in the floodplain but not directly on the water might go down, said Hulst. Insurance costs for people directly on the water are likely to go up. But the rate-of-change rules remain in place.
The Independent also asked about the floodplain bylaw changes that are on all four Outer Cape town meeting warrants.
“There’s a statewide model bylaw that pretty much every town in the state is adopting,” said Hulst. “As a legal matter, the state decided that towns can’t have a stricter building code than the state does. Everything that people are used to seeing in their local codes is in the state building code. So, all those strike-throughs from the town bylaws — all of that is found in the state code.”
That means the rules for when a home must be elevated to above base flood elevation still exist. If a residential property undergoes substantial improvements — defined as at least 50 percent of the value of the structure — or if it is substantially damaged, then it must be elevated.
Much of Commercial Street is mixed-use, with residential space on the upper floors and commercial on the ground floor. In these cases, different kinds of wet and dry floodproofing can sometimes be used, said Hulst.
Sarah Korjeff of the Cape Cod Commission is a historic preservation specialist working with Hulst and others on design standards for raising and floodproofing historic buildings. She’s focusing on Provincetown because of the unusual concentration of historic buildings located directly on the waterfront.
“In some cases, in order to preserve historic buildings, we will have to elevate them,” said Korjeff. “In other cases, there may be alternate ways of protecting them. You can have nonresidential uses in the flood zone and just do floodproofing, as long as the floors above with people in them would still be protected.” A nonresidential ground floor can be armored against floodwaters or designed to be permeable.
“That may not be an answer that will work for a very long time,” Korjeff cautioned. There are a lot of factors to consider, including building materials, depth of expected flooding, and potential wave energy.
“For example, Outer Cape Health’s building in Harwich Port — they were able to floodproof the bottom four feet of the structure, and then have these special inserts that they can place in the exterior doors,” said Korjeff. “If flooding gets up to the highest level that’s predicted, it still doesn’t necessarily get into the building.”
There are also landscape-level interventions, like the large dune that Provincetown is building at the beach between Gosnold and Ryder streets to block seawater from cascading down Gosnold again. Home owners might also build barriers around their property, or even around groups of houses in a flood-prone neighborhood, said Korjeff.
A group of six graduate students from Tufts University will be exploring more theoretical adaptations for Provincetown this spring. Town Planner Thaddeus Soule pitched Provincetown as an ideal place for students of urban and environmental planning to do such a project. At present, they’re asking Provincetown residents to fill out a survey (at forms.gle/X3LirefbmHpLQgi68) about their favorite historic buildings.
Later this spring, the students will be presenting their work to the select board. Soule encouraged them to dream big and imagine things such as engineered coastal defenses and floodable park spaces, as well as strategies to raise large numbers of buildings without destroying the human-scale streetscapes of Provincetown.
In the summer, the local comprehensive plan committee should be presenting drafts of a new LCP. Because the goals identified in the plan set the criteria for judging applications that come before other committees, it is effectively the master policy document that will guide future development.
“We can’t have standards weaker than the Massachusetts building code,” Soule said. “But could we be more proactive, and do more, sooner? It would be great if we came up with a holistic plan that balanced community needs with the rights of individual property owners.”
To keep Commercial Street appealing to pedestrians, for example, the town might decide it wants café tables or pop-up shopping under lifted historic buildings, instead of parking lots and dumpsters. Once a policy is chosen, the town can nudge proposals to look more like the LCP.
Envisioning a flood-safe, enjoyable streetscape and making a plan to get there is a “this year” project — something to do before the next big flood, instead of after.
SHOP-SHIFTING
Provincetown’s Retail Sector Gets Clean Bill of Health
Some locations have shuffled, but vacancies are few
PROVINCETOWN — An early and persistent fear about the pandemic was that small businesses in town would tumble, and Commercial Street would end up lined with shuttered storefronts. Another worry was that small-business failures might lead to big-business incursions, with beloved local shops replaced by Banana Republics or worse.
But with spring arriving, it’s become evident that Commercial Street is as healthy as ever. Some stores have moved to new locations, and the vacancy rate seems modest. The Independent counted seven available retail spaces on a recent walk down Commercial — at the former locations of Bravo, House of La Rue, Adams Pharmacy, Jelessi, Body Body, BXclusive, and Wampum etc. La Rue and BXclusive relocated, and the owner of Body Body got a new store named Steele. There’s been some churn and retirements, but, by and large, the retail corridor has survived.
Two new entrants to the scene found few available properties to consider. One, Scents of Adventure, moved into the former Salt Supply store. The other, Pillow Top, got a space in Whaler’s Wharf. Both businesses began as Covid sanity projects — creative outlets for cooped-up people.
Uncommon Scents
Chris Swank and Adam Shane are the co-owners of Scents of Adventure, which sells handmade candles with custom scent profiles. “I’ve opened up a business before — day spas down in Florida,” says Swank. “My parents own them now. This is our first foray into retail. We both have full-time jobs that are completely different from this. I’m a fifth-grade teacher for Boston Public Schools!”
Shane works in trade shows and events, and when Covid hit, both men were suddenly working from home. “Last March, Adam stood up from the couch and said, ‘I’m ordering a candle-making kit from Amazon!’ ” Swank recalls. “I said, ‘You go right ahead.’ ”
The business began online. “We do a lot of partnership candles, working with nonprofits that might be running a campaign,” says Swank. “For the Alzheimer’s Association of Massachusetts/New Hampshire, we made ‘A Scent to Remember.’ For Camp Nellie Huckins, a girls’ camp in New Hampshire that was closed because of Covid, we made ‘Up High in the Mountains.’ We donate 20 percent back for every candle sold in a campaign.”
Why expand to brick and mortar? “We were sure we wouldn’t be doing any traveling, so we decided to give it a shot,” Shane says. “When we started looking in February, there really wasn’t much available. It was actually a competitive bid to get this place — there were other offers.”
Our Pillow
Michael DeMartino and Brian Orter, the new owners of Pillow Top, were actually looking for studio space for DeMartino’s Covid projects when they found the ground-floor retail space in Whaler’s Wharf they’re now working in. They had looked at stores that were larger and more expensive than they needed before finding their niche.
“What might be driving the cost is that residential property has gone up in price so dramatically,” says Orter. “There are so many residential units with ground-floor retail, and when the price of the whole place goes up, that means property tax goes up, and the mortgage goes up.”
Pillow Top would not have existed but for Covid. “Michael converted our garage into a workshop — 3D printers, a digital lab, sewing machines, a recording studio, all this stuff,” Orter says. “First, he made a coat for his mom, but you can kind of do anything with a pillow. I mean, he made a pillow that’s a gumball machine; he made one out of glass. There’s the studded harness pillow.
“When would we have an opportunity like this to try something and just see where it goes?” Orter adds. “Pillow Top could be a one-year thing that didn’t work, or it could turn into a warehouse full of drag queens making things and shipping them all over. Who knows?”
Breaking the Chain
Provincetown has had a bylaw since 2010 that theoretically keeps “formula retail” such as Banana Republic from opening here. Yet many believe the law would fail, like Wellfleet’s did, if taken to court, which is why the town settled with CVS. The Independent asked the chair of the local comprehensive plan committee, Ginny Binder, about efforts to write a bylaw that could withstand a legal challege.
“I think it’s critical that we maintain an atmosphere that welcomes small businesses,” said Binder. “I also think it’s doable. I’ve been to so many places where the coolest stores end up becoming a Duane Reade or a Gap. The property owners are delighted they’re getting $150,000 a year, but who comes to Provincetown to go to a Crate & Barrel?”
Binder said her committee, which is tasked with the rewrite of the local comprehensive plan, will be proposing a number of bylaw updates and referring them to town boards. “My hope is to run a bunch of stakeholder-engagement public sessions” over the summer, she said, “so that those bylaws would be ready for a fall town meeting.”
