Visitors to Newport this summer will find a host of new events, hotel accommodations, restaurants and shops, following an unusually dynamic off-season for the city’s tourism and hospitality industry.
The new attractions and destinations, which include two marquee events expected to draw hundreds of thousands of visitors, and at least 13 new restaurants and shops in downtown Newport, are being hailed by tourism officials as signs of a healthy, self-renewing industry.
“I think you could say it’s a banner year for restaurants and retail,” said Kathryn Farrington, director of marketing for the Newport County Convention and Visitors Bureau. “It’s really wonderful when you can speak about new things that are coming in. Every year we always strive … to offer the visitors something different.”
But some business owners in downtown Newport point to high turnover in the past yera on Thames Street, the heart of Newport’s tourist district, as evidence that many independent businesses are struggling in an increasingly uncertain tourism economy.
“It will always be the type of neighborhood where somebody has that ‘Eureka!’ moment where they say, ‘Oh, I’ve got this great business idea, and isn’t Newport the perfect backdrop for it,’ ” said Jerry Schlichting, general manager of Frazzleberry’s Country Store and president of the Lower Thames Street Business Association.
In reality, Schlichtling said, entrepreneurs “really underestimate the challenges of doing business in a seasonal economy, and doing business in a neighborhood that presents certain challenges, such as parking and the weather.”
Schlichting and other businesses owners hope to get a bump this summer from thousands of tourists who are expected to visit the city June 27 to July 1 for the Amica Insurance Tall Ships Festival in Newport Harbor, the most extensive maritime festival ever staged.
Another inaugural event, the International Tennis Hall of Fame’s Gibson Guitar Champions Cup, will be staged August 22 to 26 and feature former World No. 1 tennis champions Jim Courier, John McEnroe and Mats Wilander.
Smaller events being staged for the first time this summer in the city include the Newport Preservation Society’s William K. Vanderbilt Jr. International Concours d’Elegance, a classic car show to be held July 27 to 29 at the Newport Mansions; and the Newport Restoration Foundation’s “The Look!” – an exhibit of Doris Duke’s couture day and evening wear at Rough Point, Duke’s estate on Bellevue Avenue, running now through November.
In June, a new Marriott Residence Inn is scheduled to open in Middletown, and a handful of Newport-area hotels have undergone renovation since last summer, including the Newport Harbor Hotel & Marina, the historic Hotel Viking in downtown Newport, and the Marriott Courtyard in Middletown.
SpaVuré, a company that already operates spas in Providence, Narragansett and Johnston, is scheduled to open a new spa at the end of June in the Newport Marriott, the only major hotel in the city currently without a spa, Farrington said.
New restaurants in Newport – most of which are on lower Thames Street – include Sanibar, a tapas restaurant opening in the space formerly occupied by the Steaming Bean Expresso Café; Ariel’s Southern Pride, a family-style chicken and ribs barbeque operating in the space formerly used by Newport Pizza; Roberto’s, an Italian restaurant; Fluke, a seafood restaurant and wine bar in the space formerly occupied by LeBistro restaurant; The Gas Lamp Grille, an American cuisine restaurant being opened in the former The Garden by the same owners; The Kitchen, a new restaurant in the Vanderbilt Residence club offering world contemporary cuisine; and an as-yet unnamed Mexican restaurant planned for the site of the former A&O Fish, Farrington said.
Perhaps the biggest change in Newport’s restaurant scene is the addition of Forty 1° North, an exclusive yacht facility, restaurant and event space set to open on Thames Street in the space that housed Christie’s for more than a century.
The team opening Forty 1° North – led by Dorrance H. Hamilton, the Campbell’s Soup heiress – is also working to open another restaurant, which they plan to give the Christie’s name, in the space formerly occupied by The Cheeky Monkey.
New retail shops opening in Newport include OSKA, a clothing store on Bannisters Wharf in the space that formerly housed Mark Fore & Strike; Brooks Brothers, which is opening a store in Newport’s Brick Market II; and Cuffy’s of Newport, which is expanding its store in Long Wharf Mall, Farrington said.
Schlichting said retail businesses operating in downtown Newport face significant challenges, including high commercial lease rates, a lack of parking and a business district that lacks consistent business hours and a cohesive mix of businesses.
Concerned about the rate at which businesses were closing around them, in March 2006 Schlichting and fellow business owners formed the merchants association to advocate for physical improvements and increased security on Thames Street and to work toward better branding and marketing for the district.
Schlichting and his family, retail veterans who have operated a store for tourists in upstate New York’s Hudson Valley for 14 years, opened Frazzleberry’s Country Store on Thames Street three years ago. They were surprised by how hard it was to operate a successful small business in Newport, he said.
“It’s been a real challenge for us, I’m not going to lie,” Schlichting said. “We’ve basically rewritten the whole playbook twice since opening up here. You know, I think you do see a lot of businesses come and go just because people didn’t really have a clear idea as to what they were getting into.”
Keith W. Stokes, executive director of the Newport County Chamber of Commerce, cautions against pinning the cause of high turnover on Thames Street solely on high leases, a lack of parking or other issues that can be fixed by the city.
Tourism throughout New England and across the nation has been negatively impacted in recent years by 9-11 and the recession that followed, high gas prices, unusual weather and the war in Iraq, he said.
“There’s no such thing as a Newport tourism economy. We’re as much reflective of a New England economy as anything that’s going on necessarily in Newport,” Stokes said. “Newport has a very mature, very successful tourism brand. I mean, 3 million visitors a year come to Newport – that’s the good news.”
