Fort Adams gets its chance to shine

COURTESY R.I. DEPARTMENT OF TOURISMWIND IN THE SAILS: This month, Newport will play host to the final stop in the 2012 America's Cup World Series events. More than $1 million has been put into upgrades at Fort Adams as the park prepares for its closeup.
COURTESY R.I. DEPARTMENT OF TOURISM WIND IN THE SAILS: This month, Newport will play host to the final stop in the 2012 America's Cup World Series events. More than $1 million has been put into upgrades at Fort Adams as the park prepares for its closeup.

On June 26, Newport will become the final stop in the 2012 America’s Cup World Series events, marking the culmination of nearly a year of such events all over the world and Rhode Island’s quest to bring world-class racing back to the Ocean State.
But it also marks the beginning of the state’s plans to keep it that way.
“This is a phased development,” said Brad Read, executive director of Sail Newport and chairman of the state’s America’s Cup host committee, about continued infrastructure developments at Fort Adams State Park, which will be the venue for Cup events beginning pre-race on June 23.
“With some work, we can really do a lot to keep these economically viable, globe-trotting events coming to Rhode Island,” he said.
Fort Adams, the coast fortification across Newport Harbor that is a venue for many annual events, including the Newport Jazz Festival and Newport Oysterfest, has been at the center of the state’s sailing-status woes for some time.
In 2010 the state lost its bid for the America’s Cup 2013, which will take place in San Francisco.
That came on the heels of a failed attempt to bring the Volvo Ocean Race in late 2009 and brought, Read previously told Providence Business News, a “light bulb” moment that made it clear improvements would have to be made at Fort Adams if the state wanted to capitalize on the prestige and tourism dollars that come with being seen as a world-level sailing venue.
“We’ve been bidding for the [World Series event] for 18 months and we were in flux as to whether we could have a facility,” said Joe Dias, chief of the division of planning and development at the R.I. Department of Environmental Management. “We are [now] 99.9 percent finished with everything they wanted us to do.”
The R.I. Economic Development Corporation has said the America’s Cup World Series race has “accelerated” public infrastructure improvements at the park. They began in the summer of 2011 and are expected to be completed in 2013.
Nearly $1.3 million, according to an EDC fact sheet, has been spent so far on projects, including removing traffic islands and repaving roads to accommodate boat transportation, upgrades to electric, water and lighting systems, and construction of new, modular docks to allow boat docking and various dock configurations for future events. Fort Adams is being used during the America’s Cup events as a fan-zone village from June 23-July 1, at the race’s conclusion.
The host committee has been advising that it is the best place to watch racing. Boaters on the water, it said, will have limited views to a wide safety zone that will be in place.
The village will have food courts, entertainment, including a race simulator – a video game style match-race test – and exhibitions centering on Rhode Island’s heritage in ocean exploration and marine trades, including from the University of Rhode Island’s Graduate School of Oceanography in South Kingstown.
Jumbo screens will be placed for attendees to get a closer look at the racing vessels in action.
“Everyone was used to getting on boats and going miles [out to see the race]. We’re going to broadcast this like Monday Night Football,” Smith said. “You’re blending a festival and a sailing regatta and calling it one event.”
The village will be open at 10 a.m. most event days and close at 5 p.m. on nonrace days. The village will stay open until 7 p.m. on race days.
Access to the village is free from June 23-June 27. Race tickets must be purchased for race days at $10 for adults. Children 12 and under will be admitted for free.
“Now that Fort Adams has been made a vastly improved event venue, you can think of it as a new stadium,” said Evan Smith, president and CEO of Discover Newport. “It will pay dividends in the decades to come.”
Another estimated $1.5 million in improvements are expected after this month’s races, including the development of a 400-foot wave attenuator, which reduces waves, that will help provide a sheltered harbor for boats and the shoreline.
Gov. Lincoln D. Chafee appointed the host committee very early this year and the 30-member group has since, members say, worked tirelessly to put everything together. Smith has served as chairman of the marketing and publicity subcommittee.
He began his work last September, traveling to Plymouth, England, to see the series’ second stop (it has also been to Cascais, Portugal; San Diego; Naples, Italy; and Venice, Italy) to gain firsthand views.
“That was so valuable and I really feel like I would have been lost without it,” Smith said. “This event is entirely new-school. The series is marketing through social media and promotional partners.”
The first World Series event was held June 8 – a gala reception at Fort Adams. Practice starts on June 26, with racing beginning on June 28.
Smith learned just last week that there will be an opening ceremony on June 27.
“It’s a work in progress and it keeps unfolding,” he said. “It’s still a recipe in the making.”
Smith and Jane Howington, city manager for Newport, both said the willingness of volunteers has surpassed their hopes.
Howington has chaired the logistics subcommittee, which has focused on organizing traffic and other crowd issues to ease any resident disruption.
She said Newport can expect to see about the same amount of visitors as the jazz festival typically brings, with the heaviest crowds gathering on the Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday race days.
She said, in fact, that the city’s annual St. Patrick’s Day parade, where most attendees lost cellphone service because of crowding a small space, had a bigger crowd impact than the America’s Cup Series will have.
Challenges, she said, have been trying to estimate needed parking spaces and how to manage a 40 percent fluctuation rate for each day.
The subcommittee also has worked steadily on planning ways to get attendees to use water ferries versus shuttle services to ease road congestion.
“It’s, if everybody ends up deciding to come on Friday, how fast can we get another bus in here so people don’t sit at the water for an hour waiting for a shuttle?” Howington said. “I don’t know that we could be much more prepared.” •

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