When Ann Molloy looks at her hometown of Gloucester, she doesn’t see economic downturn or an unemployment rate higher than the national average. She sees a working waterfront that has been threatened by ever-tightening fishing regulations, a sleepy New England port community that may be a fraction of its former self, but is nonetheless ripe with potential.
City hall has apparently had similar thoughts. With the appointment of two new executives to its community development department, the city is taking yet another step toward further developing the community.
Thomas Daniel, director of the community development department, and Thomas Gillett, executive direct of the Gloucester Economic Development and Industrialization Corp., joined the effort to bring a bit of economic revitalization to the city, as the rest of the country begins to wake up from the past several years’ downturn.
Daniel previously worked as the economic development manager in nearby Salem and before that, in an economic development position in Minneapolis. Gillett meanwhile has accumulated decades of experience in public and private business management, at companies like AT&T and GTE. He fell in love with Gloucester about 15 years ago.
“When you talk about the recession, that’s one thing that has definitely hit Gloucester,” says Michael Luster, vice president of commercial banking at Rockport National Bank, “But we do have a great history here of being resilient and being a tough community.”
Ever-stricter fishing regulations have hurt the community, too, maybe even more so than the recession. Luster estimates the fleet is probably about one-tenth its former size.
Gloucester’s status as America’s oldest seaport puts the city in a unique position. The city has busy seasons and off seasons. Between May and October, you might have to wait in line to dine at a local restaurant, but the colder months until April are lean times for restaurateurs and innkeepers.
That seasonal element also factors into the higher-than-average unemployment rate, says Robert Gillis, the vice president of Cape Ann Savings Bank.
“On the flip side, residential real estate is strong,” he adds. “The city has a cash surplus, and it’s managed well.”
Daniel and Gillett say that in addition to the large industrial and smaller manufacturing companies the city already supports, Gloucester has recently been attracted many in the high-tech sector, and Gillett says some of his efforts will focus on bringing those people together in kind of a “Silicon Seaport” – that’s the name given to a LinkedIn networking group serving the same purpose.
A Hotel Stimulus?
Some are hopeful, too, that a proposed 101-room hotel will stimulate economic activity in both the tourism and business sectors. Previously, people coming to Gloucester to do business with Varian or Gorton’s, two of the city’s biggest employers, would generally have to make accommodations elsewhere. But a hotel and accompanying conference center could bring that additional business into town.
Molloy is not a fan of the hotel’s Commercial Street location, saying that the rezoning of that parcel of land endangered other marine industrial businesses in the vicinity and that one priority in community development should be to “keep gentrification at bay.”
“There’s a big push in Gloucester for hotels and yacht marinas. If we don’t keep the working waterfront strong, we’ll lose it to the developers that have been eyeing our beautiful city for years,” she said.
But Luster is among those who believe the working waterfront can exist side-by-side with the tonier elements of society.
“I prefer the charm of a working waterfront, as opposed to just looking out at the water with nothing happening,” he said.
The waterfront and the ocean are Gloucester’s greatest resource, Molloy says, and that opens up a wealth of possibilities for industries like marine robotics and research. She points to Ocean Alliance, a nonprofit marine research organization that recently moved to Gloucester.
“We need to bring in more marine industrial jobs and expand our utilization of the ocean to new and innovative ideas, new products,” she said.
Molloy, who is the director of sales and marketing at Neptune’s Harvest, may be ahead of the curve on that one. Since the early ‘80s, her business, which she co-owns with five siblings, has been producing organic fertilizer from fish remains that otherwise would be thrown away.
“Economic development is never anything that’s done. We have a tremendous asset in the harbor, and there’s great consensus in the community to keep the harbor and keep the working waterfront. That is what’s special about Gloucester,” Daniel emphasizes. “It is Gloucester, it is nothing else.”
Email: lalix@thewarrengroup.com
