State holds off on demolition of Lighthouse Inn to test for hazardous building materials – The Providence Journal

NARRAGANSETT The state has put on hold demolition of the former Lighthouse Inn, the shuttered building in the Port of Galilee at the center of a dispute with Narragansett town officials and residents.

The Department of Environmental Management announced on Friday that it needs to conduct a hazardous building materials assessment before the structure can be razed.

This assessment will determine the presence and extent of hazardous materials, including potentially asbestos, which would need to be addressed for either demolition or redevelopment of the building and/or site, Terrence Gray, director of the state agency, said in a statement.Consideration of any changes to the leases at the site will be suspended until this assessment is completed and an accurate estimate of the cost of remediation is available.

The assessment is expected to take 90 days once a contractor is hired, Gray said. The results will be shared with Narragansett officials and posted on the DEM website for the public.

More: Critics say plans for Galilee's Lighthouse Inn look like a parking lot with token shops

The decision to put the project on hold is just the latest development in a long-running debate over the future of the former inn, which occupies a prominent spot off Great Island Road. The 5-acre parcel is owned by the DEM and leased to PRI X, thearm of theCranston-basedProcaccianti Companies thatonce operated the now-decrepit motel and stilluses the landfor parking.

Town Council members and other residents believe that the developerfell into breach of its lease when it stopped operating the Lighthouse Inn as a motel in 2017or, in their opinion, maintaining it properly. The criticsmet with the attorney generals officeto air their complaints, but there has been no actionso farby the office.

The DEM kicked off a process last year to solicit proposals for reusing the land, but the agency rejected all three proposals submitted. They included proposals from PRI X, for a strip of storefronts and the future construction of a hotel, and the Town of Narragansett, for a hotel with a restaurant, event space and gallery.

Instead of going forward with those plans, or another from iCellAqua for a wastewaterprocessing facility, the agency said it would maintain two of the three lots on the property for parking and take down the decrepit motel to make the site more attractive for future development.

Because of the propertys proximity to the Port of Galilee, the states largest commercial fishing port, the request for proposals highlighted the importance of supporting the fishing industry in any redevelopment proposal.

The DEM concluded that the Narragansett and PRI X proposals would not adequately benefit the fishing industry. The iCellAqua proposal was rejected because of uncertainty about what the company was planning.

Our focus and mission has not changed, said DEM spokesman Michael Healey. We still want to attract to this site a company that supports commercial fishing. At the same time, we respect the towns frustration about how long this process has taken. We want to work with the town as best we can.

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State holds off on demolition of Lighthouse Inn to test for hazardous building materials - The Providence Journal