Surplus Property
By CARL E. FEATHER Lifestyle Editor
Ashtabula Lighthouse offered to nonprofit preservation
groups
Article Publication Date: 10/21/2004
The long-awaited offering of the Ashtabula Lighthouse by the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) has finally come, much to the delight of Ashtabula Lighthouse Restoration and Preservation Society leadership and members.
The group was formed three years ago with the goal of either leasing the structure from the Coast Guard or buying it outright. Joe Santiana, president of the organization, said there have been hundreds of phone calls and many letters written to advance the project to this point. Both he and historian Bob Frisbie feel confident that the organization is in a good position to be awarded the responsibility of caring for this local martitime treasure.
“We’ve spent a lot of time talking to people to make sure we got all our ducks in a row,” Frisbie said.
The 1905 lighthouse was placed on the list of excess government property Sept. 28, confirmed Arthur Ullenberg, realty specialist with the GSA in Chicago. The GSA is seeking a government organization or qualified nonprofit group that will accept the responsibility of preserving the structure and its associated maritime history. The price: $1.
“It’s not a sale, but a public discount conveyance, more like a transfer of property to them to be held in trust with certain conditions,” Ullenberg said.
Santiana said the organization has expressed its interest in the lighthouse to the GSA and is now awaiting the official application packet from the National Park Service, which has the final say in awarding stewardship.
“We look and see if they have all their ducks in a row,” says Susan Vincent, National Historic Lighthouse Act Program Coordinator, in describing the review process.
Vincent says the National Park Service gets involved because it is committed to the preservation of historic buildings. “We are in the preservation business,” said Vincent.
Whenever a building that is on the National Register of Historic Places is declared surplus, the NPS gets involved in selecting the new owner. The State Historic Preservation Office also gets involved in the long-term monitoring of how well the new owner lives up to the conditions of the conveyance.
Across U.S. coastlines, lighthouses are being offered to nonprofit groups because they are no longer necessary in an age of Global Positioning System (GPS).
“The Coast Guard doesn’t want to maintain them,” Vincent said of the antiquated lighthouses.
The process of acquiring a lighthouse is long and often filled with delays, however. Only 10 of several hundred U.S. lighthouses have actually been transferred, said Vincent. Another 30 to 40 are in process.
Vincent said the timeline for making a decision on the Ashtabula Lighthouse looks like this:
• Groups have 60 days to respond to the offering;
• An applicant has 90 days to complete and return the application;
• The NPS has 60 days to review the application;
• If the panel of specialists who review the application feels that more information is needed from the applicant, that review process can be extended;
• Another offering of the property can be made by the GSA if the review panel does not find a suitable new owner among the first round of applicants.
“All in all, it takes about a year, and it can be longer if extensions are requested,” Vincent said.
The NPS gives high priority to organizations familiar with the requirements of historic preservation and that is financially in a position to meet those requirements. She said the NPS also requires a five-year preservation plan that includes the kinds of physical renovations the group intends to perform, as well as the manner in which the property will be used.
Frisbie said the society’s general preservation plan for the lighthouse starts with a thorough inspection of the property to make sure there is no hidden damage below water level. Next, they want to restore electrical power to the structure so contractors will have power to run equipment necessary for renovation.
Some of the work they know the lighthouse will need includes power washing/sand blasting the structure, painting, and replacing windows and perhaps doors with historically accurate replacements. The entire interior needs a good cleaning, something volunteers are willing and eager to do.
“The majority of the outside is in really good shape,” he says.
Once the lighthouse is ready for visitors, the first floor will probably be dedicated to some type of a museum that honors the heritage of the Great Lakes lighthouse keeper, port of Ashtabula and Coast Guard. Visitors would arrive at the museum via a charter boat. Walking the breakwater to the structure is pretty much out of the question.
“The trek across the break wall is a little dangerous for the average person,” Santiana says.
Long road to listing
Frisbie says the society worked with the Coast Guard for many months to iron out a lease on the structure, but that hit a dead-end when it came to getting insurance on the structure. The lease required it, but no insurance company doing business in Ohio was willing to write a policy.
“Everybody was either not registered or licensed in Ohio or would not do it because they had to deal with the federal government,” Frisbie said.
Another issue, and a fairly common one when dealing with the transfer of a lighthouse, was ownership of the land underneath the structure. Ohio owns the land, and the Army Corps of Engineers owns the breakwater next to the lighthouse. After contacting several Ohio lawmakers without success, Santiana was able to resolve the issue by working through Rep. George Distel of Conneaut.
“He got right on it,” Santiana said. “He got the problem solved right away. He is very interested in what is going on in Ashtabula County.”
Resolving the land ownership issue cleared the way for the GSA to place the lighthouse on the surplus list. The next challenge facing the group is to convince the NPS that it’s the best owner for the property. Santiana says he is not aware of any other nonprofit group with an interest in the structure. Ashtabula Marine Museum, a separate entity, is not interested in it and supports the lighthouse group’s efforts to acquire it, says Frisbie, a member of both groups. He says many of the lighthouse group members also are Marine Museum members, as well.
The lighthouse group has about 100 members, many of them with an interest in doing hands-on work to the lighthouse. Members also help raise money to restore the lighthouse through the annual festival at Lakeshore Park and various fundraisers.
Santiana said these events will be necessary to raise the annual operating, insurance and maintenance costs for the lighthouse. He estimates them at $20,000, which is in addition to money that will be needed for initial repairs. Frisbie said there are many grants available to historical preservation groups, and the lighthouse organization plans to pursue those once they own the structure.
Income also will be raised through admittance fees charged visitors. Santiana says that in other communities where a lighthouse was acquired by a nonprofit group, the attraction has drawn 3,000 to 5,000 visitors annually. He said although the Ashtabula group will have its hands full with its project, if another group would be willing to look into the Conneaut lighthouse, they’d share their hard-earned advice for moving that lighthouse onto the GSA list.
Ullenberg said the only other Lake Erie lighthouse that he’s aware of coming onto the list is the Toledo light. He could not find any reference to Conneaut’s lighthouse. The Ashtabula lighthouse is currently the only Lake Erie lighthouse being offered by the GSA, he said.
Vincent said that if none of the applications meets the NPS’s criteria, then the lighthouse goes up for auction on the GSA web site, which works much like eBay. However, the same preservation requirements apply to any person or business that purchases it.
“We’re still involved,” said Vincent of the requirements set forth by the Park Service.
online:
http://www.cr.nps.gov/maritime/nhlpa/nhlpa.htm