Charlie Becker didn’t look cold as he drove a shovel into the ice recently to clear the way into Oldies Marketplace in downtown Newburyport, despite the frigid late-March waterfront winds.

 Becker, the caretaker of the Water Street property whose laugh lines are chiseled sharply from the corners of his eyes to the bottoms of his cheeks, declined to give his age. But by the looks of him, he’s been breaking up ice in front of Oldies long enough to feel a certain nostalgia – perhaps an even stronger emotion he’d rather not mention – for the place.

“Everybody in town wants to see the place stay open,” Becker told a reporter in the windswept parking lot of the antiques market that resembles both a long red barn and an old tuna cannery. Neither structure would seem out of place in this historic seaside community.

Becker wasn’t idly wishing for Oldies’ longevity. Like many of the structures along the city’s waterfront, Oldies is in constant threat of disappearing from the Newburyport landscape. That’s because a large portion of the city’s prime real estate fronting on the Merrimack River is owned by a single real estate developer by the name of Stephen Karp, head of New England Development, which does business as Newburyport Development in this seaside community, whose year-round population stands at just over 20,000.

In fact, he owns about 50 parcels across the downtown, including marinas, restaurants, retail and residential space. Karp, well-known in the commercial real estate world for building malls and residences up and down the East Coast, floated a plan to replace Oldies with a new hotel. When an abutter complained the new 67-room property would block her view of the water, that plan was shelved in 2011 and has collected dust ever since.

However, the developer is now thinking about building an even larger hotel – one with up to 85 rooms – on another parcel he owns at 75 Merrimack St. The proposal for a land-bound hotel rather than one directly on the river could indicate a serious shift in Karp’s vision for his waterfront parcels, given past challenges. As of now, the hotel proposal is still preliminary, according to the developer.

“We are continuing to review our options for development in Newburyport, one of which includes a hotel,” said Deborah Black, vice president of marketing and public affairs for New England Development.

Farther Along

While Karp’s plans are just being laid, the Newburyport Redevelopment Authority (NRA) is getting ready to release a request for proposals to interested developers to build more parkland and some mixed-use residential and retail buildings on two other prime waterfront parcels that are currently parking lots, with mixed-use buildings already on the perimeter. But those parcels have a history so controversial it could make even the most experienced Boston developer’s head hurt, possibly explode.  

The NRA owns the two large parking lots on either side of a small public park that comprise much of the public’s easy access to that waterfront, as well as the majority of the NRA’s land. Those parking lots were essentially created in the 1960s, when the town fathers and the federal government decided it would be a good idea to demolish the tired old downtown brick buildings and erect strip malls in their place. After a portion had already been lost to urban renewal, some locals realized the historic treasure they were allowing to be destroyed and put a stop to the demolition. They instead convinced the federal Housing and Urban Development department to funnel funds to refurbishing the historic downtown, and helped create the city’s bustling shopping district.   

Those last two 4.2-acre puzzle pieces exist to this day, the ones that will finally knit the waterfront together once the parking lots are gone, said Tom Salemi, current NRA chairman. It’s not that developers haven’t tried to build on those parcels the area. In the 1970s, a developer proposed condos to the water’s edge. Some neighbors weren’t happy because they wanted access to the water as well.

Then in the ‘80s, the city selected another developer to build a hotel on what they call the east lot, near Oldies, and would have had parking on the west lot. That plan got tangled up in legal challenges from a citizen group that still wants the waterfront to be completely building-free, and the NRA filed a suit because the agency wasn’t happy with the terms of the contract negotiated with the previous NRA.

So now, the NRA hopes people will see the benefits – namely, money necessary to pay for maintaining the parkland – of a developer buying or leasing a portion of the NRA’s waterfront land to build a limited number of buildings on the site. The park alone will likely cost between $2 million and $5 million to build, and if buildings go up, the entire redevelopment project could cost $20 million, Salemi said.

Email: jcronin@thewarrengroup.com